[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.