[192] It is not clear how these are to be distinguished from the mutilations of the later volumes by his treacherous publisher Le Breton. Of this treachery the details are given by Grimm, Corr. litt. ed. 1829. vii, 144 sq. [↑]
[193] Buckle’s account of him (1-vol. ed. p. 426) as “burning with hatred against his persecutors” after his imprisonment is overdrawn. He was a poor hater. [↑]
[194] Madame Diderot, says her daughter, was very upright as well as very religious, but her temper, “éternellement grondeur, faisait de notre intérieur un enfer, dont mon père était l’ange consolateur” (Letter to Meister, in Notice pref. to Lettres Inédites de Mme. de Staël à Henri Meister, 1903, p. 62). [↑]
[195] “Hélas! disait mon excellent grand-père, j’ai deux fils: l’un sera sûrement un saint, et je crains bien que l’autre ne soit damné; mais je ne puis vivre avec le saint, et je suis très heureux du temps que je passe avec le damné” (Letter of Mme. de Vandeul, last cited). Freethinker as he was, his fellow-townsmen officially requested in 1780 to be allowed to pay for a portrait of him for public exhibition, and the bronze bust he sent them was placed in the hôtel de ville (MS. of M. de Vandeul-Diderot, as cited). [↑]
[196] Madame de Vandeul states that this story was motived by the case of Diderot’s sister, who died mad at the age of 27 or 28 (Letter above cited; Rosenkranz, i, 9). [↑]
[197] Lettre de Voltaire à D’Alembert, 27 août, 1774. [↑]
[198] Lettre de 2 décembre, 1757. [↑]
[199] Œuvres posthumes de D’Alembert, 1799, i, 240. [↑]
[200] D’Holbach was the original of the character of Wolmar in Rousseau’s Nouvelle Héloïse, of whom Julie says that he “does good without recompense.” “I never saw a man more simply simple” was the verdict of Madame Geoffrin. Corr. litt. de Grimm (notice probably by Meister), ed. 1829–31, xiv, 291. [↑]
[201] Marmontel says of him that he “avoit tout lu et n’avoit jamais rien oublié d’interessant.” Mémoires, 1804, ii, 312. [↑]