'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, his Hearse and Funeral Company.

Adieu, a pitying adieu to him forever,--and even to his adoring La Beaumelle, who is rather less a blockhead than he generally seems.
This of the Two Capuchins, the last consummation of collapse in man, is what Voltaire cannot forget, but crows over with his shrillest mockery; and seldom mentions Maupertuis without that last touch to his life-drama.
GRAND FRENCH INVASION-SCHEME COMES ENTIRELY TO WRECK (Quiberon Bay, 20th November, 1759): OF CONTROLLER-GENERAL SILHOUETTE, AND THE OUTLOOKS OF FRANCE, FINANCIAL AND OTHER.
On the very day of Maxen, Tuesday, November 20th, the grand French Invasion found its terminus,--not on the shores of Britain, but of Brittany, to its surprise.

We saw Rodney burn the Flat-bottom manufactory at Havre; Boscawen chase the Toulon Squadron, till it ended on the rocks of Lagos.