next summer, 1757, when he thought of leaving St.
Malo,--what wars, and rumors of war, all over the world!

"June, 1757, he went to Bordeaux, intending to take ship for Hamburg,
and return; but the sea was full of English cruisers [Pitt's Descents
lying in store for St. Malo itself]. No getting to Berlin by the Hamburg
or sea route! 'Never mind, then,' wrote the King: 'Improve your health;
go to Italy, if you can.'

"Summer, 1757, Maupertuis made for Italy; got as far as
Toulouse;--stayed there till May following; sad, tragically stoical;
saying, sparingly, and rather to women than men, strong things, admired
by the worthier sort. Renounced thoughts of Italy: 'Europe bleeding, and
especially France and Prussia, how go idly touring?'

"May, 1758, Maupertuis left Toulouse: turned towards Berlin; slow, sad,
circuitous;--never to arrive. Saw Narbonne, Montpellier, Nimes; with
what meditations! At Lyons, under honors sky-high, health getting worse,
stays two months; vomits clots of blood there. Thence, July 24th, to
Neufchatel and the Lord Marischal; happy there for three months. Hears
there of Professor Konig's death (AKAKIA Konig): 'One scoundrel less in
the world,' ejaculated he; 'but what is one!'--October 16th, to the
road again, to Basel; stays perforce, in Bernouilli's house there, all
Winter; health falling lower and lower.

"April, 1759, one day he has his carriage at the door ('Homeward, at
all rates!'): but takes violent spasms in the carriage; can't; can no
farther in this world. Lingers here, under kind care, for above three
months more: dying slowly, most painfully. With much real stoicism; not
without a stiff-jointed algebraic kind of piety, almost pathetic in
its sort. 'Two Capuchins from a neighboring Convent daily gave him
consolations,' not entirely satisfactory; for daily withal, 'unknown to
the Capuchins, he made his Valet, who was a Protestant, read to him from
the Geneva Bible;'--and finds many things hard to the human mind. July
27th, 1759, he died." [La Beaumelle, _Vie de Maupertuis,_ pp. 196-216.]

Poor Maupertuis; a man of rugged stalwart type; honest; of an ardor, an
intelligence, not to be forgotten for La Beaumelle's pulings over them.
A man of good and even of high talent; unlucky in mistaking it for the
highest! His poor Wife, a born Borck,--hastening from Berlin, but again
and again delayed by industry of kind friends, and at last driving on
in spite of everything,--met, in the last miles