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Fig. 21
Pierre de Maupertuis painted by Tournières in 1743. He is dressed for the cold of Lapland.
He rests his hand on the pole of the Earth, flattening it, and nearby (right foreground) there is a pair
of dividers with which he will measure the scale of a degree. © Observatoire de Paris
that it was in the hands of a certain Swiss named Henzi who had been executed in Berne
after being on trial for conspiracy; no trace of the letter could be found in Henzi's belong-
ings. It was unwise to criticize the president of the Berlin Academy to the Academy on
such unsubstantiated grounds and an internal hearing of the Academy reported negatively
on all this. König resigned and withdrew back to his university in Bern.
Maupertuis was isolated and criticized by the Cartesians. He found approval, how-
ever, in the young mathematician Émilie, the Marquise de Châtelet, of whom he
became tutor and lover. She worked with him on mathematics and on the explana-
tions and commentaries which she wrote for her textbook on the
Principia
even
after she had become also the lover of Voltaire (Bodanis 2006).
People
Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise du Châtelet-Laumont (1706-
1749)
Born in Paris into an aristocratic family, Émilie's father was a landowner and courtier. She
was a bright child and her father educated her well. In appearance she was said by some
to be large and ungainly and her big feet were especially noticed; as a grown woman,
