Unforeseen events frustrated our intention, and the project was
carried no further.
* The Jeerer.
These two authors had just undertaken the Dictionnaire
Encyclopedique, which at first was intended to be nothing more than
a kind of translation of Chambers', something like that of the Medical
Dictionary of James, which Diderot had just finished. Diderot was
desirous I should do something in this second undertaking, and
proposed to me the musical part, which I accepted. This I executed
in great haste, and consequently very ill, in the three months he
had given me, as well as all the authors who were engaged in the work.
But I was the only person in readiness at the time prescribed. I
gave him my manuscript, which I had copied by a lackey, belonging to
M. de Francueil of the name of Dupont, who wrote very well. I paid him
ten crowns out of my own pocket, and these have never been
reimbursed me. Diderot had promised me a retribution on the part of
the booksellers, of which he has never since spoken to me nor I to
him.
This undertaking of the Encyclopedie was interrupted by his
imprisonment. The Penses Philosophiquies,* drew upon him some
temporary inconvenience which had no disagreeable consequences. He did
not come off so easily on account of the Lettre sur les
Aveugles,*(2) in which there was nothing reprehensible, but some
personal attacks with which Madam du Pre St. Maur, and M. de Reaumur
were displeased: for this he was confined in the dungeon of Vincennes.
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