Lyell's Principles of Geology, pp. 39, 40; Mém. of Mallet du Pan, vol. i. p. 125.
747
Soulavie, Règne de Louis XVI, vol. ii. p. 214; Williams's Letters from France, vol. ii. p. 86, 3rd edit. 1796.
748
Mém. de Ségur, vol. i. p. 253; Mém. de Lafayette, vol. ii. p. 34 note; Lettres de Dudeffand à Walpole, vol. ii. p. 365. On Raynal's flight, compare a letter from Marseilles, written in 1786, and printed in Mem. and Correspond. of Sir J. E. Smith, vol. i. p. 194.
749
See the proceedings of the avocat-général, in Peignot, Livres condamnés, vol. i. pp. 230, 231; and in Soulavie, Règne de Louis XVI, vol. iii. pp. 93–97.
750
Quérard, France Lit. vol. v. p. 565.
751
Peignot, Livres condamnés, vol. i. pp. 241, 242.
752
Biog. Univ. vol. xxiv. p. 561; Œuvres de Voltaire, vol. lxix. pp. 374, 375; Lettres inédites de Voltaire, vol. ii. p. 528; Duvernet, Vie de Voltaire, pp. 202, 203. According to some of these authorities, parliament afterwards revoked this sentence; but there is no doubt that the sentence was passed, and De Sales imprisoned, if not banished.
753
Peignot, Livres condamnés, vol. i. pp. 314, 316.
754
Œuvres de Voltaire, vol. lxix. p. 204; Lettres de Dudeffand à Walpole, vol. iii. p. 260.
755
'Quatre mémoires … condamnés à être lacérés et brûlés par la main du bourreau.' Peignot, vol. i. p. 24.
756
Biog. Univ. vol. xxiii. p. 187.
757
Duvernet, Hist. de la Sorbonne, vol. i. p. vi.
758
‘Supprimée par arrêt du conseil’ in 1771, which was the year of its publication. Compare Cassagnac's Révolution, vol. i. p. 33; Biog. Univ. vol. xxiv. p. 634.
759
Quérard, France Lit. vol. iii. p. 337.
760
Biog. Univ. vol. x. p. 97.
761
Peignot, vol. i. p. 328.
762
ibid. vol. i. p. 289.
763
Biog. Univ. vol. vii. p. 227.
764
Lettres d'Aguesseau, vol. ii. pp. 320, 321.
765
Cassagnac, Causes de la Rév. vol. i. p. 32.
766
Biog. Univ. vol. iii. p. 375.
767
Quérard, vol. iii. p. 489.
768
Ibid. vol. vii. pp. 483, 484.
769
Ibid. vol. iii. p. 302.
770
Ibid. vol. iii. p. 261.
771
On the importance of this remarkable thesis, and on its prohibition, see Saint-Hilaire, Anomalies de l'Organisation, vol. i. p. 355.
772
Quérard, vol. iv. p. 255.
773
Biog. Univ. vol. xv. p. 203.
774
Ibid. vol. xxi. p. 391.
775
Ibid. vol. xlv. p. 462, vol. xlvii. p. 98.
776
Peignot, vol. i. pp. 90, 91, vol. ii. p. 164.
777
Ibid. vol. i. p. 170, vol. ii. p. 57.
778
Ibid. vol. ii. p. 214.
779
‘Il resta trois ans dans la cage; c'est un caveau creusé dans le roc, de huit pieds en carré, où le prisonnier ne reçoit le jour que par les crevasses des marches de l'église.’ Biog. Univ. vol. xi. p. 171.
780
Peignot, Livres condamnés, vol. i. pp. 14, 15.
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,