[Transcriber´s note: The notations (N.) and (BR.) designate footnotes taken
from the Naigeon and Brière editions, respectively. The endnotes by Assézat
are unmarked.]
[1] In 1749, M. de Maurepas, still Secretary of the Navy, wrote Louis XV a
report in which he developed a strategy for opening trade relations with the
English colonies through inland Canada. This plan was thereafter adopted, and
Maurepas saw it executed before his death. (BR.)
[2] This word alone would suffice to make the reader lose all confidence in
the account that follows it, and yet it is literally true. Diderot adds
nothing either to the events or to the temperaments of the characters he
introduces. Mademoiselle de La Chaux´s passion for Gardeil, the monstrous
ingratitude of her lover, the details of her meeting with him, of their
conversation in Diderot´s presence, who had accompanied her to the house of
this ferocious beast. The hopelessness touching this betrayed woman,
abandoned by him for which she had sacrificed her sleep, her fortune, her
reputation, her health, and even the charms by which she seduced him: all
this is of the greatest exactness. As Diderot knew the actors in this drama
particularly well, for the facts he had been witness to or the friendship
that had entrusted him with them were still recent when he resolved to record
them, his imagination had not had the time to alter them by adding or
subtracting some circumstance to produce a greater effect. And here again is
one of the fairly rare accounts of his life, where he says only what has
seen, and has seen only what was.
As for the curious particularities that he recorded from Mademoiselle de La
Chaux and that he documented in his writing, I will add only a single fact -
that he omitted through forgetfulness and that was worthy of being conserved
- that this so tender, so passionate, so interesting by her extreme
sensibility and by her misfortunes, above all so worthy of a better fate, had
also been friends with D´Alembert and the Abbot de Condillac. She was in a
position to hear and assess the works of these two philosophers. She had even
given the latter, who´s Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge she had read,
the very wise advice of returning to his first thoughts, and, if I may use
the expression, to begin at the beginning, i.e., the reject with Hobbes the
absurd hypothesis of a distinction between two substances in man. I dare say
that this very philosophical view, this sole idea of Mademoiselle de La Chaux
suggests more breadth, depth and accuracy in her mind that the whole of
Condillac´s metaphysics, in which there is in effect a radical and
destructive vice that affects the entire system, and yields more or less
vague and uncertain results. One sees that Mademoiselle de La Chaux sensed
this; and one regrets that Condillac, more docile to the judicious advice of
this enlightened woman with uncommon insight, did not follow the route that
she pointed him towards. He would not have scattered so many errors over the
one he decided upon, and upon which one can only run astray, as happens daily
to those that take him as their guide. See, on this philosopher, the
preliminary reflections that serve as an introduction to his article, in the
METHODICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA, Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Philosophy, t. II,
and what I have again in my Historical and Philosophical Memoires on the life
and work of Diderot. (N.)
[3] Antoine de Ricouart, count of Hérouville, born in Paris in 1713, is the
author of Treatise on the Legions, which carries the name of the marshal of
Saxony [4], Paris, 1757. He furnished the authors of the Encyclopédie with
some curious dissertations. It was hoped that they be sent to the minister
under Louis XV, but an unequal marriage excluded it. He died in 1782. (BR.)
[4] Only in the first three editions. The work had been first printed on a
copy communicated to the marshal and was found in his papers.
[5] Montucla was only thirty years old when he published his History of
Mathematics, Paris, 1758. It was reviewed and finished by Lalande, Paris,
1799-1802. (Br.)
[6] See t. 1, p. 399.
[7] Le Camus (Antoine), who left behind other memories of charity.
We owe to him a large number of works of literature and of medicine. We will
here cite only: The Medicine of the Mind, Paris, 1753. Strategy for Wiping
Out Smallpox, 1767. Practical Medicine Made Simpler, More Reliable and More
Methodical, 1769. Numerous memoirs on different subjects of medicine.
Abdéker, or the Art of Conserving Beauty, 1754-1756. Love and Friendship,
comedy, 1763. The Pastoral Romance of Daphnis and Chloe, translated from
Longus´ Greek by Amyot, with a double translation, Paris, 1757. This new
translation by Le Camus is still worth reading after the one just published
by M. Courier in Sainte-Pélagie, where he was detained for a work
commissioned by the estate of Chambord. Paris, 1821. (BR.)
[8] Gardeil died on April 19, 1808, at the age of 82. We have from him a
Translation of Hippocrates´ Medical Works, from the Greek text according to
the Foës edition, Toulouse, 1801. (Br.)--He Practiced in Montpellier.