THE RUE TARANNE AND DIDEROT.
Diderot’s Early Life in Paris--His Love Affairs--Imprisonment in the
Château de Vincennes--Diderot and Catherine II. of Russia--His Death.
An interesting book has been published, under the title of “Paris
Démoli,” on the churches, houses, and buildings of various kinds which
were pulled down during the work of reconstruction pursued so vigorously
during recent years, and especially under the Second Empire. To build
the Rue de Rennés, which joins the Place Saint-Germain-des-Prés to the
terminus of the Left-Bank Western Railway on the Boulevard Montparnasse,
it was necessary to pull down the two first houses in the Rue Taranne,
numbered 1 and 2. No. 2, whose side windows look out upon the Rue
Saint-Benoit, afforded for many years an abode, on the fifth floor, just
beneath the roof, to Diderot, who, however, died, not here, but in the
Rue Richelieu immediately after his return from a visit to the Empress
Catherine.
Fitted neither by birth nor breeding for the atmosphere of courts,
Diderot received, nevertheless, from the Russian empress the greatest
marks of favour. In Russia Catherine could scarcely govern otherwise
than despotically, though she once summoned a parliament whose members
were entrusted with legislative functions; and it was perhaps not
altogether her fault that nothing came of their labours. Personally,
however, she had not the despotic manners by which the intercourse of
Frederick the Great with his inferiors was so often marked. Of a more
accommodating disposition than Diderot, Voltaire was able for a
considerable time to live peacefully with the Prussian king, though when
at last the inevitable quarrel came, he did not scruple to criticise and
satirise the sovereign whom, through a long course of years, he had
persistently flattered.
Son of a blacksmith and cutler at Langres, Diderot entered at an early
age the college of Harcourt, directed by the Jesuits. But showing no
aptitude for the theological career, he was placed with a lawyer, at
whose office he occupied himself exclusively with the study of
literature, philosophy, and mathematics. After a time the chief of the
office remonstrated with him, and asked him how he expected to live. “I
am fond of study,” he replied, “I can exist on very little, I am
perfectly happy; why, then, should I trouble myself about a regular
profession?” On being informed of these views Diderot’s father began by
stopping his son’s allowance. Then Diderot gave lessons, but not, it
would seem, on very remunerative principles; for if the pupil pleased
him he was ready to go on teaching him all day, whereas, in the contrary
case, he did not give a second lesson. He accepted payment in the form
of books, clothes, or anything else which, in the absence of money, the
pupil could offer. After a time he was engaged in a private family,
where for three months he taught incessantly, walking out with his
pupils, taking all his meals with them, and not leaving them for a
moment. He disliked, however, living in another person’s house, and
retired after three months to his own garret. He was now in the direst
poverty. He was often without food, and one Shrove Tuesday, in 1741 (he
was then twenty-eight years of age), he returned home in a fainting
condition from having eaten nothing all day. His landlady, seeing his
enfeebled state, gave him some toast steeped in wine; “and I then
swore,” said Diderot afterwards to his daughter, “that, if ever I
possessed anything, I would not, so long as I lived, refuse help to a
fellow creature who might find himself in a similar position.” On the
whole, however, apart from occasional bad days, Diderot led a lively
existence. He could write in any style, and was ready to execute any
kind of literary work. He even composed sermons. He wrote six for a
missionary, who paid him 300 crowns (about £36) for the half-dozen. This
he afterwards declared to be one of the best strokes of business he had
ever done. From time to time he wrote to his father, who did not answer
him. His mother, however, sent him, from time to time, a portion of her
savings by a faithful servant who, without saying anything about it,
added to the amount some savings of her own. On these occasions the poor
woman had to make a journey on foot of some 300 miles, 150 each way. In
spite of this assistance Diderot was often in distress. It may be, as
Heine somewhere suggests, that writers and artists, like medlars, ripen
best on straw. It is certain, in any case, that the talent and courage
of Diderot developed in spite, if not in consequence, of his poverty.
His energy grew in proportion as he exercised his power of resistance.
Unable to be much poorer than he actually was, Diderot now resolved to
get married. He heard one morning that two ladies had come to live in
the same house as himself. One was Mme. Champion, widow of a man who had
ruined himself and his family by his mania for speculation; the other
her daughter, Mlle. Annette Champion, a tall, handsome, well-mannered
girl. They had their own furniture, had saved a little money, and were
trying to support themselves by needlework. Diderot wished to be
introduced to them. “They will decline to make your acquaintance,” was
his landlady’s reply. He determined to order some shirts; by one means
or another he had resolved to make their acquaintance. On seeing the
daughter he fell in love with her, and soon afterwards proposed to marry
her. “You wish to get married?” said Mme. Champion; “and upon what? You
have no profession, no property, nothing whatever except a tongue of
gold, with which you have managed to turn my daughter’s head.” The
girl’s mother, however, gave her consent, and Diderot had next to obtain
the consent of his own father. Old Diderot, however, treated his son as
a madman, and not only would not hear of the marriage, but threatened to
curse him if he persisted in his intentions. Troubled on all sides,
Diderot now fell ill, and the illness sealed his fate. He was waited
upon and nursed by his two kind-hearted neighbours. On his recovery he
was profuse in his expressions of gratitude towards the mother; nor did
this prevent him from marrying the daughter in secret.
The young woman whom he now made his wife was more remarkable for good
nature than for intelligence. The strangest stories are told about her
want of brains. Thus, on one occasion, when a publisher had in her
presence purchased a manuscript from Diderot for 100 crowns, she
expressed her astonishment at his taking so much money for a few scraps
of paper, and urged him to return the sum. About a year later Diderot,
finding that injurious stories had been told to his family concerning
his wife, sent her without invitation on a visit to his father, who
received her with kindness, and kept her in his house for three months.
Meanwhile Diderot made the acquaintance of a Mme. de Pinsieux, who,
unlike the wife, was more remarkable for intellectual than for moral
qualities. She was extravagant in her tastes, and to gratify them
Diderot plied his pen with ceaseless activity.
To furnish her with money, literary spendthrift that he was, he wrote
books of the most varied kinds, from “Pensées Philosophiques,” one of
his most admirable works, to “Les Bijoux Indiscrets,” one of the most
objectionable. No one complained of the licentious tale. But the
philosophical work, a pamphlet of some sixty pages, full of profound
truths, expressed with vivacity and originality, was first attributed to
Voltaire, and next burnt by the common hangman. In his “Letter on the
Blind,” Diderot gave further offence, and this time he was imprisoned in
the castle of Vincennes. Everyone thought that the materialism professed
by Diderot in his essay was the cause of his arrest; which, however, was
due to something quite different. His “Lettre sur les Aveugles” had been
written on the occasion of an operation for cataract performed by
Réaumur on a patient who had been blind from birth. Diderot had wished
to study the first sensations produced upon the blind man by the effect
of light; but the famous operator would admit no one except a lady of
fashion, Mme. Dupré de Saint-Maur; and at the beginning of his letter
Diderot complained of the man of science who had preferred to have his
experiment witnessed by two beautiful eyes rather than by men capable of
appreciating it. Mme. Dupré de Saint-Maur is said to have had
considerable influence with M. d’Argençon, the Minister of Police; and
without judgment or accusation Diderot was arrested on the 24th of July,
1749, and taken to the Château of Vincennes. Thus religion was avenged,
and Mme. Dupré de Saint-Maur also.
[Illustration: GRIMM AND DIDEROT.]
That Diderot’s arrest was due in a great measure to the general contents
of his book, and not merely to his by no means uncomplimentary mention
of Mme. Dupré de Saint-Maur, seems proved by the fact that after
imprisoning him the police visited Diderot’s house and made a search for
his manuscripts. The unhappy author remained for twenty-eight days in
secret confinement. At the end of that time he wrote to D’Argençon
begging the minister to liberate him from a captivity “in which he might
make him die but could not make him live.” He was now transferred from
the castle-dungeon to the castle itself, where his wife and several of
his friends were allowed to visit him, among others Jean Jacques
Rousseau, with whom for some time past he had been on intimate terms.
In the eighth book of his “Confessions” Rousseau relates how a visit he
made to the prisoner of Vincennes marked an epoch in his life. The
Academy of Dijon had just proposed the following subject for a prize
essay:--“Has the revival of Arts and Letters contributed to the
purification of manners?” It was during his visits to Diderot in the
Château that Rousseau claims not only to have conceived the idea of
treating the question proposed, but also to have written the greatest
part of the essay which was to cause such a sensation in the world.
Diderot, however, gave a very different account of the matter to his
friend Marmontel. “I was prisoner at Vincennes,” he said, “where
Rousseau came to see me. He had made me his Aristarchus, as he himself
declared. One day, when we were walking together, he told me that the
Academy of Dijon had just proposed an interesting question, and that he
wished to treat it. The question was ‘Has the revival of arts and
letters contributed to the perfection of morals?’ ‘Which side shall you
take?’ I said to him. ‘The affirmative,’ he replied. ‘That is the _pons
asinorum_,’ I said. ‘All the mediocre people will take that view, and
you can only support it by commonplace ideas; whereas the contrary side
offers to philosophy and eloquence a new and fertile field.’ ‘You are
right,’ he answered, after a moment’s reflection. ‘I will follow your
advice.’” Diderot himself wrote on this very subject: “When the
programme of the Academy of Dijon appeared he came to consult me as to
which side he should take. ‘Take the side,’ I said to him, ‘that no one
else will take.’”
It was, in any case, Rousseau who wrote the essay, author though Diderot
may have been of its paradoxical character. As an example of the laxity,
as well as the severity of the period, it may be mentioned that when
Diderot had once been set free from the dungeon, he was allowed, in his
more commodious place of residence, to receive not only his wife and
friends, but also Mme. de Pinsieux, to whom he was still attached. One
day, when she was visiting him, he was struck by the brilliancy of her
attire. She accounted for the elaborateness of her toilette by saying
that she was going to an entertainment at Champigny. “Was she going
alone?” he asked. “Quite alone.” “Your word of honour?” “I give it you.”
Diderot did not quite believe in the lady’s assurances, and soon after
her departure he climbed over the wall of the park, hurried to
Champigny, and there saw Mme. de Pinsieux with some admirer. He went
back, scaled the wall a second time, and became once more a captive, but
with a heart set free. “He broke for ever,” says an indignant moralist,
“with his unworthy mistress.”
[Illustration: STATUE OF DIDEROT, BOULEVARD ST.-GERMAIN, FACING THE RUE
ST.-BENOIT.]
Diderot remained three years at Vincennes. He quitted his prison in
1734, and now conceived the plan of the “Encyclopædia,” a magnificent
literary and scientific monument, which alone would justify the
reputation he enjoys. It occupied him, without absorbing the whole of
his time, for more than thirty years; and there was certainly no other
man who could have brought to the work such wide knowledge, such energy
of style, and such prodigious application. He had undertaken the
articles on historical, philosophical, and scientific subjects, while he
was, at the same time, in association with D’Alembert, to go over the
work of all the contributors. As regards many of the subjects Diderot
had to study them as he went on; which his marvellous intuition enabled
him to do with the best effect. “Diderot,” said Grimm, “has naturally
the most encyclopædic head that ever existed.” “His genius, in its
sphere of activity, includes everything,” said Voltaire. “He passes from
the heights of metaphysics to the frame of a weaver, and thence to the
drama.” “Centuries after the time of his existence,” wrote Rousseau, in
his “Confessions,” when he had quarrelled with him, “this universal head
will be looked upon as we now look upon the head of Plato or Aristotle.”
Apart from his legitimate work Diderot had to cope with opposition and
persecution of all kinds. The Jesuits had proposed their co-operation
for the theological articles of the “Encyclopædia,” and Diderot had
refused their offer equally with a similar one made by the Jansenists.
The work was forthwith denounced as irreligious; and with such
contributors as Diderot and Voltaire it could scarcely, indeed, have
been otherwise, though it was not the direct object of the writers to
make war upon Faith. Among the many celebrated authors who furnished
articles to the “Encyclopædia” Rousseau may in particular be mentioned.
But like most of the contributors he wrote only for a time, and chiefly
on musical subjects. D’Alembert, Voltaire, Rousseau, all fell off;
Rousseau because something had offended him, Voltaire to write his own
philosophical dictionary, D’Alembert because he had grown tired of the
work. “I am worn out with the vexations of all kinds brought upon us by
this work,” wrote D’Alembert to Voltaire in 1758. At one time its
publication was forbidden, when Catherine II. offered to continue it in
Russia. The volumes were, curiously enough, thrown into the Bastille;
which, since they could be taken out again, was at least better than
burning them at the hands of the common hangman.
Catherine II. granted Diderot a handsome pension, and she at the same
time purchased his library for a large sum. The empress went so far,
indeed, as to send him the sum of 50,000 francs, being the annual
pension paid in advance for fifty years. Touched by the bounty of
Catherine, Diderot wished to thank the empress in person, and in the
year 1773 he started for Russia. At the Hague he was met by the High
Chamberlain, Narischkin, who, accompanying him to St. Petersburg, put
him up at his own house. Diderot’s friend Grimm was already at St.
Petersburg. He presented Diderot to the Empress Catherine, who received
him in the most cordial manner. She would be glad to see him, she said,
in her own apartments every day from three to five or six, and she took
the greatest pleasure in his conversation. “I see him very often,” she
wrote to Voltaire. “Our conversations are incessant. What an
extraordinary head he has! As for his heart, would that all other men
had one like it. I do not know whether they (Grimm and Diderot) are
getting tired of St. Petersburg, but I know that I could talk to them
all my life without fatigue.”
Catherine did her best to keep Diderot at St. Petersburg; but he wished
to return to Paris, and though he had been invited to stay at Berlin by
Frederick the Great, he passed through Prussia without visiting the
capital. It has been before said that he had no sympathy for Frederick.
Soon after his return to Paris he was taken ill, and after a short
malady died. The curé of Saint-Roch had come to see him, and Diderot
received him in a very friendly manner. They talked on various moral and
religious subjects, and as they agreed on many theological points,
especially as to the efficacy of charity and good works, the curé
ventured to suggest that if he would authorise the publication of these
opinions, together with a retractation of his works, the effect would be
excellent. But Diderot would do nothing of the kind. Neither would he
confess. Nevertheless there was but little difficulty in connection with
his funeral, which took place at Saint-Roch, where he was buried (July,
1784) in the Chapel of the Virgin. There his remains still lie.
[Illustration]