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When he assailed Christianity in its innermost fortresses, while professing to be a Christian, he incurred the indignation of all Christians and the contempt of all infidels, for he added hypocrisy to scepticism, which they did not. Diderot, D'Alembert, and others were bold unbelievers, and did not veil their hostilities under a weak disguise.
Milord Marshal died in the month of May, 1778. A eulogium on Milord Marshal, by D'Alembert, is extant. I may serve as eyes to the blind goddess, and repair in some measure the injustice, and I beg you to offer on that account.
D'Alembert, who in his note said the work gave me a decided superiority, and ought to place me at the head of men of letters, did not sign what he wrote, although he had signed every note I had before received from him. Duclos, a sure friend, a man of veracity, but circumspect, although he had a good opinion of the work, avoided mentioning it in his letters to me.
The correspondence of Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, D'Alembert, is sufficient to show how immediately, as well as how powerfully, they were influenced by Montesquieu's memorable book. Again, it is surely going too far to say that Montesquieu's Persian Letters contained every important idea of the century.
If we may use an expression which neither Diderot, d'Alembert nor Voltaire, in spite of every effort, have been able to engraft on our language, a conjugal catastrophe se subodore is scented from afar; so that our only course will be to sketch out imperfectly certain conjugal situations of an analogous kind, thus imitating the philosopher of ancient time who, seeking in vain to explain motion, walked forward in his attempt to comprehend laws which were incomprehensible.
Diderot, D'Alembert, Grimm, and their master, Voltaire, Rousseau had some real or fancied grievance against them all. But the difference between him and them was intrinsic, not accidental.
And there was a copy of D'Alembert in French, and I wondered what a great man I would be, if by foreign travel I should ever be able to read straight along without stopping, out of that book, which now was a riddle to every one in the house but my father, whom I so much liked to hear talk French, as he sometimes did to a servant we had.
With respect to D'Alembert, I shall at present leave him out of the question, and hereafter say of him what may seem necessary. I had, at the same time, another affair which occasioned the last letter I wrote to Voltaire; a letter against which he vehemently exclaimed, as an abominable insult, although he never showed it to any person. I will here supply the want of that which he refused to do.
"I am always," cried he, "doomed to suffer for the offences of others; every kind of folly is made a present to me." "Have a care, monsieur l' abbe," exclaimed d'Alembert, who was among the guests, "have a care! men seldom lavish their gifts but upon those who are rich enough to return the original present in a tenfold degree."
Some time afterwards, I found that he and D'Alembert had, to a certain degree, I will not say supplanted, but succeeded me in the good graces of Madam de Luxembourg, and that I Had lost in them all they had gained. However, I am far from suspecting the Abbe Morrellet of having contributed to my disgrace; I have too much esteem for him to harbor any such suspicion.
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