[119] It is surprising how many legends have obtained respecting the life of Agnesi after the publication of her _Instituzioni Analitiche_. Thus, the writer of the article in the _Edinburgh Review_, above quoted, declares that "she retired to a convent of _blue nuns_,"--a statement that has frequently been repeated in many of our most noted encyclopedias. In a _Prospetto Biografico delle Donne Italiane_, written by G. C. Facchini and published in Venice in 1824, it is stated that Maria Gaetana was selected by the Pope to occupy "the chair of mathematics which had been left vacant by the death of her father," while Cavazza in his work _"Le Scuole dell," Antico Studio Bolognese_, pp. 289-290, published in Milan in 1896, assures us that Gaetana Agnesi taught analytical geometry in the University of Bologna for full forty-eight years. The facts are that neither the father nor the daughter ever taught even a single hour either in this or in any other university. Cf. _Maria Gaetana Agnesi_, p. 273 et seq., by Luisa Anzoletti, Milano, 1900. This is far the best life of Milan's illustrious daughter that has yet appeared. The reader may also consult with profit the _Elogio Storico_ di Maria Gaetana Agnesi, by Antonio Frisi, Milano, 1799, and _Gli Scrittori d'Italia_, of G. Mazzuchelli, Tom. I, Par. I, p. 198 et seq., Brescia, 1795. [120] M. Rebiere, in _his Les Femmes dans la Science_, p. 13, Paris, 1897, writes, "Ne pourrait-on aller plus loin et canonizer notre Agnesi? J'estime, moi profane, que ce serait une sainte qui en vaudrait bien d'autres." [121] _An Eighteenth Century Marquise, a Study of Emilie du Chatelet_, p. 5, by F. Hamel, New York, 1911. [122] Preface to Mme. du Chatelet's translation of the _Principia_ of Newton, Paris, 1740. [123] Voltaire's last tribute, "The Divine Emilie," or, as Frederick II was wont to call her, "Venus-Newton," concluded with the following verses: "L'Univers a perdu la sublime Emilie; Elle aimait les plaisirs, les arts, la verite; Les dieux, en lui donnant leur ame et genie, N'avaient garde pour eux que l'immortalite." The universe has lost the sublime Emilie; she loved pleasure, the arts, truth; the gods, in giving her their soul and genius, retained for themselves only immortality. For further information of this extraordinary woman, see _Lettres de la Mme. du Chatelet, Reunies pour la premiere fois_, par Eugene Asse, Paris, 1882. [124] At the beginning of her correspondence with Gauss, Legendre and Lagrange Mlle. Germain concealed her sex under a pseudonym, "in order," as she declared, "to escape the ridicule attached to a woman devoted to science"--_craignant le ridicule attache au titre de femme savante_. She, too, suffered from the widespread effects of Moliere's _Les Femmes Savantes_, as had many a gifted woman before her time and as have many others of a much later date.