acquainted with the best-known families, and has been able to obtain complete information in a town where there are still living the majority of the eye-witnesses, considering the short lapse of time (nine years) since 1859.”--Letter to Mademoiselle Charlotte de Knoblich, quoted by Matter, in his _Life of Swedenborg_. [20] This idea springs logically from the human and divine ternary, from the trinity of the microcosm and the macrocosm we have spoken of in the previous chapters. The metaphysical correlation of Destiny, Liberty and Providence has been admirably drawn by Fabre d’Olivet, in his commentary on the _Golden Verses of Pythagoras_. [21] This classing of men corresponds to the four stages of Pythagorean initiation, and forms the basis of all initiations, even that of the primitive freemasons, who were not without a smattering of esoteric teaching.--See Fabre d’Olivet, _les Vers dorés de Pythagore_. [22] Montesquieu and Michelet are almost the only writers who have made mention of the virtue of Greek wives. Neither of them states its cause, which I point out in these few lines. [23] This is the version of Diogenes of Laërte regarding the death of Pythagoras--according to Dicearchus, quoted by Porphyry, the master escaped massacre, along with Archippus and Lysis. He wandered from town to town until he reached Metapontum, where he died of hunger in the Temple of the Muses. The inhabitants of Metapontum, on the other hand, affirmed that the sage they had taken in, died peacefully in their city. They pointed out to Cicero his house, seat and tomb. It is noteworthy that, long after the master’s death, those cities which had persecuted Pythagoras most, at the time of the democratic change of opinion, claimed for themselves the honour of having offered him refuge and protection. The towns around the Gulf of Tarentum claimed that they each contained the ashes of the philosopher with as much desperation as the towns of Ionia disputed among one another the honour of having given birth to Homer.--See this question discussed in M. Chaignet’s conscientious work: _Pythagore et la philosophie pythagoricienne_.