id="n773">
773
Biog. Univ. vol. xv. p. 203.
774
Ibid. vol. xxi. p. 391.
775
Ibid. vol. xlv. p. 462, vol. xlvii. p. 98.
776
Peignot, vol. i. pp. 90, 91, vol. ii. p. 164.
777
Ibid. vol. i. p. 170, vol. ii. p. 57.
778
Ibid. vol. ii. p. 214.
779
‘Il resta trois ans dans la cage; c'est un caveau creusé dans le roc, de huit pieds en carré, où le prisonnier ne reçoit le jour que par les crevasses des marches de l'église.’ Biog. Univ. vol. xi. p. 171.
780
Peignot, Livres condamnés, vol. i. pp. 14, 15.
781
Mémoires de Marmontel, vol. ii. pp. 143–176; and see vol. iii. pp. 30–46, 95, for the treatment he afterwards received from the Sorbonne, because he advocated religious toleration. See also Œuvres de Voltaire, vol. liv. p. 258; and Letters of Eminent Persons addressed to Hume, pp. 207, 212, 213.
782
Mém. de Morellet, vol. i. pp. 86–89; Mélanges par Morellet, vol. ii. pp. 3–12; Œuvres de Voltaire, vol. liv. pp. 106, 111, 114, 122, 183.
783
Marmontel (Mém. vol. ii. p. 313) says, ‘qui n'a connu Diderot que dans ses écrits ne l'a point connu:’ meaning that his works were inferior to his talk. His conversational powers are noticed by Ségur, who disliked him, and by Georgel, who hated him. Ségur, Souvenirs, vol. iii. p. 34; Georgel, Mém. vol. ii. p. 246. Compare Forster's Life of Goldsmith, vol. i. p. 69; Musset Pathay, Vie de Rousseau, vol. i. p. 95, vol. ii. p. 227; Mémoires d'Epinay, vol. ii. pp. 73, 74, 88; Grimm, Corresp. vol. xv. pp. 79–90; Morellet, Mém. vol. i. p. 28; Villemain, Lit. au XVIIIe Siècle, vol. i. p. 82.
As to Holbach's dinners, on which Madame de Genlis wrote a well-known libel, see Schlosser's Eighteenth Century, vol. i. p. 166; Biog. Univ. vol. xx. p. 462; Jesse's Selwyn, vol. ii. p. 9; Walpole's Letters to Mann, vol. iv. p. 283; Gibbon's Miscellaneous Works, p. 73.
784
It is also stated by the editor of his correspondence, that he wrote a great deal for authors, which they published under their name. Mém. et Corresp. de Diderot, vol. iii. p. 102.
785
This was the Pensées Philosophiques, in 1746, his first original work; the previous ones being translations from English. Biog. Univ. xi. p. 314. Duvernet (Vie de Voltaire, p. 240) says, that he was imprisoned for writing it, but this I believe is a mistake; at least I do not remember to have met with the statement elsewhere, and Duvernet is frequently careless.
786
Dugald Stewart, who has collected some important evidence on this subject, has confirmed several of the views put forward by Diderot. Philos. of the Mind, vol. iii. pp. 401 seq.; comp. pp. 57, 407, 435. Since then still greater attention has been paid to the education of the blind, and it has been remarked that ‘it is an exceedingly difficult task to teach them to think accurately.’ M. Alister's Essay on the Blind, in Jour. of Stat. Soc. vol. i. p. 378: see also Dr. Fowler, in Report of Brit. Assoc. for 1847; Transac. of Sec. pp. 92, 93, and for 1848, p. 88. These passages unconsciously testify to the sagacity of Diderot; and they also testify to the stupid ignorance of a government, which sought to put an end to such inquiries by punishing their author.
787
Mém. et Corresp. de Diderot, vol. i. pp. 26–29; Musset Pathay, Vie de Rousseu, vol. i. p. 47, vol. ii. p. 276; Letter to d'Argental in Œuvres de Voltaire, vol. lviii. p. 454; Lacretelle, Dix-huitième Siècle, vol. ii. p. 54.
788
A happy arrangement, by which curiosity baffles despotism. In 1767, an acute observer wrote, ‘Il n'y a plus de livres qu'on imprime plusieurs fois, que les livres condamnés. Il faut aujourd'hui qu'un libraire prie les magistrate de brûler son livre pour le faire vendre.’ Grimm, Corresp. vol. v. p. 498. To the same effect, Mém. de Ségur, vol. i. pp. 15, 16; Mém. de Georgel, vol. ii. p. 256.
789
‘Quel est aujourd'hui parmi nous l'homme de lettres de quelque mérite qui n'ait éprouvé plus ou moins les fureurs de la calomnie et de la persécution?’ etc. Grimm, Corresp. vol. v. p. 451. This was written in 1767, and during more than forty years previously we find similar expressions; the earliest I have met with being in a letter to Thiriot, in 1723, in which Voltaire says (Œuvres, vol. lvi. p. 94), ‘la sévérité devient plus grande de jour en jour dans l'inquisition de la librairie.’ For other instances, see his letter to De Formont, pp. 423–425, also vol. lvii. pp. 144, 351, vol. lviii. p. 222; his Lettres inédites, vol. i. p. 547; Mém. de Diderot, vol. ii. p. 215; Letters of Eminent Persons to Hume, pp. 14, 15.
790
Part of this is related, rather inaccurately, in Schlosser's Eighteenth Century, vol. iii. p. 483. The fullest account is in Grimm, Corresp. Lit. vol. viii. pp. 231–233: ‘Le grand Maurice, irrité d'une résistance qu'il n'avait jamais éprouvée nulle part, eut la faiblesse de demander une lettre de cachet pour enlever à un mari sa femme, et pour la contraindre d'être sa concubine; et, chose remarquable, cette lettre de cachet fut accordée et exécutée. Les deux époux plièrent sous le joug de la nécessité, et la petite Chantilly fut à la fois femme de Favart et maîtresse de Maurice de Saxe.’
791
‘L'Averdy was no sooner named controller of finance than he published a decree, in 1764 (arrêt du conseil), – which, according to the state of the then existing constitution, had the force of a law, – by which every man was forbidden to print, or cause to be printed, anything whatever upon administrative affairs, or government regulations in general, under the penalty of a breach of the police laws; by which the man was liable to be punished without defence, and not as was the case before the law courts, where he might defend himself, and could only be judged according to law.’ Schlosser's Eighteenth Century, vol. ii. p. 166: see also Mém. de Morellet, vol. i. p. 141, vol. ii. p. 75, ‘un arrêt du conseil, qui défendait d'imprimer sur les matières d'administration.’
792
‘L'ordonnance de 1767, rendue sous le ministère du chancelier Maupeou, portait la peine de mort contre tout auteur d'écrits tendant à émouvoir les esprits.’ Cassagnac, Causes de la Révolution, vol. i. p. 313.
793
In April 1757, D'Alembert writes from Paris, ‘on vient de publier une déclaration qui inflige la peine de mort à tous ceux qui auront publié des écrits tendants à attaquer la religion.’ Œuvres de Voltaire, vol. liv. p. 34. This, I suppose, is the same edict as that mentioned by M. Amédée Renée, in his continuation of Sismondi, Histoire des Français, vol. xxx. p. 247.
794
‘Il avait été défendu, sous peine de mort, aux écrivains de parler de finances.’ Lavallée, Hist. des Français, vol. iii. p. 490.
795
This was the suggestion of the avocat-général in 1780. See the proposal, in his
