FONTENELLE Bernard Le Bouyer de (1657-1757) philosopher and mathematician. L.A.S. "Fontenelle", Paris June 14, 1728, to Georg Bernhard BULFINGER, "Professor in Mathematics in the Academy of Petersburg"; 3 pages large in-8, address. Beautiful letter accompanying the sending of his book Elements of the Geometry of the Infinite (Imprimerie royale, 1727). [The physicist BULFINGER (1693-1750) will publish in 1728 in Paris at Jombert a pamphlet, which is mentioned in this letter: De Causa gravitatis physica generali, disquisitio experimentalis...] "All your business is done now, and I am only angry to have had so little part in it. I would have taken care of it, and I would have to by my place, if Mr. GODIN, young Academician, and already very skilful, had not been in the habit of relieving me of this work for some time. I am sure that this will be well done, but you will see that there will be no decrease in what Mrs. de la Rüe has in her hands. With this letter I give them three copies of the Geometrie de l'Infini, one for you, Sir, one for M. Herman, one for M. Bernoulli. I would have liked to send one to M. Delisle as well, but I have absolutely no more, and I beg his pardon. As we are compatriots and colleagues, it seems to me that I have some right to treat him more familiarly, and besides, when he comes back here, as I hope he will, I will try to repair this fault. In the meantime, I beg you, Sir, to kindly lend him your copy, which you may not have the leisure to read immediately, and I beg him not to punish me as I deserve, by disdaining to read me. I recognize that I owe a copy to M. HERMAN, who did me the honor of sending me, several years ago, his beautiful Phoronomie, which I have only recently had the time to read in its entirety and with the necessary attention. I read it with infinite pleasure, and with equal instruction. I am holding back on this subject for fear that it might seem that I would like to attract from him such speeches, which I would not deserve as he does. As for M. BERNOULLI, he has, besides his great personal merit, a name to which all works of infinite geometry owe homage. I did not fail to send it to M. his Father, whose judgment I await with impatience. It will be for me a sovereign judgment, and without appeal, although I already have several that are favorable to me. In general, Gentlemen, I ask you all, if not for the indulgence which a Geometrist is not allowed to ask for, and which would nevertheless be quite necessary for me, at least for a very close attention to a subject which is almost completely new, and which I have had the temerity to want to study in depth beyond what great men have done, whose pupil I would not be worthy of being. Moreover, I need you to be in a certain disposition not to reject too much what will seem too bold to you, and will perhaps be justified more and more in the course of the work. After that, judged, and I submit myself "... Attached is a P.A.S. as perpetual secretary of the Royal Academy of Sciences, Paris November 21, 1715 (1 p. obl. in-8; engraved portrait attached), about the election of Cardinal de Polignac to succeed Malebranche.