PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE
the most learned men in this place. I have called upon and made the acquaintance of De La Hire, who is now a great astronomer and who was formerly a well-known geometrician. I have also been frequently with Warrignon, who is the greatest geometrician and algebraist in this city, and perhaps the greatest in Europe. About eight days ago I called upon Abbé Bignon, and presented your compliments, on the strength of which I was very favorably received by him. I submitted to him for examination, and for introduction into the Society, three discoveries, two of which were in algebra. [The third was his new method of finding longitude.] . . . Here in town I avoid conversation with Swedes, and shun all those by whom I might be in the least interrupted in my studies. What I hear from the learned, I note down at once in my journal; it would be too long to copy it out and to communicate it to you. . . . During my stay in Holland I was most of the time in Utrecht, where the Diet[1] met, and where I was in great favor with Ambassador Palmquist, who had me every day at his house; every day
- ↑ The famous Congress of Ambassadors, by which the Spanish Succession was ended and peace secured for a generation.
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