Courtivron, Gaspard Le Compassed De Crequi, Marquis De

, chevalier de Saint-Louis, and veteran pensionary of the academy of sciences, born at Dijon in 1715, died the 4th of October, 1785, at the age of 70. He | signalized himself both as a military and a literary man. Being wounded in the campaign of Bavaria, in the act of saving marshal Saxe from the most imminent danger, he devoted himself to the cultivation of mathematics and natural philosophy, and communicated to the French academy several valuable memoirs on those sciences. His separate publications were, 1. “A treatise of Optics,” 1752, 4to. The author here gives the theory of light on the Newtonian system, with new solutions of the principal problems in dioptrics and catoptrics. This book is of use as a commentary on Newton’s Optics. 2. “Memoirs of an Epizootia which raged in Burgundy.” 3. “The Art of Forges and Furnaces;” this he wrote in partnership with M. Bouchu, which was afterwards incorporated in the Cyclopaedia. The marquis de Courtivron, says his eulogist, was a true philosopher. As he had properly appreciated life, he resigned it without disquietude, and perhaps without regret. The only sentiment to be perceived through the serenity and silence of his last moments, was that of gratitude for the tenderness that was shewn him, and a constant attention to spare the sensibility of his family and friends. ¹