[25] Some of the passages of this “Prefatory Discourse” will be found in the Introduction.
[26] In a lecture read before the Academy of Sciences and Literature of Berlin, the 23d of August 1787, and printed in the memoirs of that Academy, Formey told this story on the authority of M. de Maupertuis, who is said to have heard it from the lady herself, the wife of the financier, Charles Rémy de July, to whom she brought a dowry of more than 100,000 livres.
[27] See note 3, page 4.?
[28] See the Chapter “Of Society and Conversation,” page [122], § 66, and note 228; about Fontenelle, see in the same Chapter the character of Cydias, page [127], § 75.
[29] This he stated openly in the speech he delivered at his reception at the Academy, the 15th of June 1693; his enemies would certainly have contradicted him if it had not been the truth.
[30] See the Chapter “Of the Court,” page [201], note 413.
[31] In the Introduction are to be found some extracts from this preface.
[32] La Bruyèreʼs bitter feelings appear in such paragraphs as § 43, page 56; in the Chapter “Of the Town,” page 166, § 4; in that “Of the Great,” pages 223 and 224, §§ 11 and 12; page 232, § 33; and in the Chapter “Of Opinions,” page 334, § 19. Molière felt a somewhat similar bitterness; at least in the dedication of les Fâcheux he says to Louis XIV.: “Those that are born in an elevated rank may propose to themselves the honour of serving your Majesty in great employments; but, for my part, all the glory I can aspire to, is to amuse you.” Compare also Shakespeareʼs hundred and eleventh Sonnet beginning—“Oh! for my sake do you with Fortune chide.”
[33] See the Chapter “Of Society and of Conversation,” page [120], §§ 56, 57.
[34] See in the Chapter “Of the Great,” page [230], § 26, which seems to me to prove this fear.