Jacques Ozanam

An act of kindness in lending money to two strangers brought him to the attention of M. d'Aguesseau, father of the chancellor, and he secured an invitation to settle in Paris.

He married, had a large family, and derived an ample income from teaching mathematics to private pupils, chiefly foreigners.

The death of his wife plunged him into deep sorrow, and the loss of his foreign pupils through the War of the Spanish Succession reduced him to poverty.

He was wont to say that it was for the doctors of the Sorbonne to dispute, for the pope to decide, and for a mathematician to go to heaven in a perpendicular line.

Science and Natural Philosophy: Dr. Hutton’s Translation of Montucla’s edition of Ozanam, revised by Edward Riddle, Thomas Tegg, London.