Democratic Enlightenment

440 Europe and the Remaking of the World
Diderot—though it is not known for sure whether he actually circulated it or not—
here flatly denies Grimm’s insistence that ‘Raynal’ had been either cowardly or
reckless in attacking Europe’s sovereigns. ‘Raynal’ surely knows, Grimm had protested,
that the princes he assails either cannot exact revenge, in which case the
Histoire’s assaults are cowardly, or else that a ruler can, in which case his outpourings
are pointless and self-destructive. It is useless defiance to assail legitimate monarchs.
Not at all, retorted Diderot: attacking someone unable to exact revenge is not
necessarily cowardice: it suffices that he merits being attacked. 170 As for lambasting
rulers well placed to retaliate, where this is done for the ‘good cause’, the common
good, far from being madness it is an act of generosity. Every philosophe and ‘homme
éclairé’ with Grimm’s attitude must remain silent, unable to criticize government,
legislation, or office-holders or denounce abuse, vice, and ‘error’, the sole topics
‘dignes d’occuper un bon esprit’. 171 It was not Raynal’s but Grimm’s course, acquiescence
in tyranny, that is the path of cowardice. A writer revealing his name on the
title page of a work attacking authority may be rash but is no ‘madman’. Ultimately, it
makes no difference whether philosophy’s enemy is powerful or weak, philosophy
should assail every foe until he ceases being vicious. To seek praise, rewards, and
general approbation is the conduct of a courtier and flatterer. The philosopher is not
afraid of persecution. His responsibility is to tell the truth and be useful to mankind.
‘Ah, mon ami’, he ends this trenchant, bitter piece. I see that your soul is mortgaged
to Petersburg, Potsdam [Frederick], and ‘l’œil de bœuf’ [Vergennes], to the antechambers
of the great and their courts. ‘I do not recognize you any more.’ His friend
had become ‘un des plus cachés, mais un des plus dangereux antiphilosophes’. 172 You
live among us ‘mais vous nous haïssez’. 173 Tragically, the ‘Demosthenes’ of our world
pass away while the abject Palissots, Linguets, and Frérons, scornful of la philosophie,
base and subservient minds of the sort scathingly portrayed in his Neveu de Rameau,
invariably flourish. 174
Grimm’s betrayal of their friendship and principles, as Diderot saw it, ranked with
his rupture with Rousseau and Le Breton’s ‘treason’ as one of the three surpassing
upsets of his life. Grimm at this point sided definitively with Catherine, Frederick,
and the ‘enlightened despots’, and later repudiated the Revolution, while the Histoire
roundly denounced Frederick’s Prussia, Catherine’s Russia, and Gustavus’ Sweden, as
among the most obnoxious and repressive examples of ‘gouvernement despotique’
even though all three genuinely belonged to the (moderate) Enlightenment. The
religious tolerance prevailing at Petersburg counted for something, grants Diderot,
the only group formally excluded being the Jews. But the philosopher should not be
deceived by this much vaunted tolerance of the Russian capital. It might be a fine
achievement were not the remainder of the Russian empire dismally sunk in ‘les plus
170
Diderot, Lettre apologétique, 189–90; Hulliung, Autocritique, 109–10.
171
Diderot, Lettre apologétique, 190.
172
Ibid. 144; Strugnell, Diderot’s Politics, 88.
173
Diderot, Lettre apologétique, 191; Duflo, ‘Diderot’, 130.
174
Diderot, Lettre apologétique,194.