[255] Cp. Morley, Diderot, p. 407. Lord Morley points to the phrase in another form in a letter of Voltaire’s in 1761. It really derives from Jean Meslier, who quotes it from an unlettered man (Testament, i. 19). [↑]
[256] Rosenkranz, Diderot’s Leben und Werke, 1866, ii, 380–81. [↑]
[257] As Lord Morley points out, Henri Martin absolutely reverses the purport of a passage in order to convict Diderot of justifying regicide. [↑]
[258] Mémoires, ed. Jannet, iv, 44, 51, 68, 69, 74, 91, 93, 101, 103. [↑]
[259] Mallet du Pan says he saw the MS., and knew Diderot to have received 10,000 livres tournois for his additions. This statement is incredible. But Meister is explicit, in his éloge, as to Diderot having written for the book much that he thought nobody would sign, whereas Raynal was ready to sign anything. [↑]
[260] Memoirs of Sir Samuel Romilly, 3rd ed. 1841, i, 46. [↑]
[261] When D’Argenson writes in 1752 (Mémoires, éd. Jannet, iv, 103) that he hears “only philosophes say, as if convinced, that even anarchy would be better” than the existing misgovernment, he makes no suggestion that they teach this. And he declares for his own part that everything is drifting to ruin: “nulle réformation ... nulle amélioration.... Tout tombe, par lambeaux.” [↑]