Jacques the Fatalist: And His Master (39 page)

1
. A Belgian village, site of a French victory in 1745 over a combined force of English, Dutch and Imperial troops.

2
. The surgeon, like other country surgeons who appear in
Jacques
, would seem to be a barber-surgeon, occupying a relatively humble position in the medical hierarchy of the period and dealing with minor surgical interventions.

3
. French military successes of 1747 and 1756 respectively.

4
. Saint Roch, traditionally invoked by plague victims, is sometimes represented as a pilgrim, but is most often recognizable by a sore or boil on his thigh. It is not known whether Diderot was thinking of any particular representation of the saint.

5
. This anecdote refers to the Marquis de Castries, wounded fighting in Westphalia in 1762. Dufouart and Louis were prominent French surgeons of the period.

6
. This phrase has become a catch-phrase in French, but Diderot’s reference to Harpagon is inaccurate, since the words are spoken by Géronte in Molière’s
Les Fourberies de Scapin
, and not by Harpagon in
L’Avare
.

7
. Pontoise and Saint-Germain are small towns situated close to Paris, and no doubt chosen to contrast with the more exotic and far-away places of pilgrimage, Loreto and Compostella.

8
. Lieutenant-governor is an approximate translation of ‘lieutenant-général, which, by the eighteenth century, refers to a magistrate appointed by the king and responsible for the administration of justice in and around a fairly important town. This suggests that the town of Conches referred to is the one in Normandy.

9
. The reference is to
Le Philosophe anglais ou Histoire de Monsieur Cleveland
, a very popular novel by the Abbé Prévost, published between 1731 and 1739 and often cited in the eighteenth century as an example of the extravagant adventure-novel.

10
. Diderot greatly admired Richardson for his realism. Regnard was the best-known writer of comedies in the generation after Molière, while
Sedaine, a contemporary whom Diderot much admired, was a successful writer of comedies and light-opera librettos.

11
. The poet has been identified as one Viguier, who published a collection of verse in 1765. Pondicherry was a French possession on the east coast of India, and a prosperous commercial centre in spite of the effects of Anglo-French conflict in India during the eighteenth century.

12
. Horace,
Ars poetica
, ll. 372–3,
Mediocribus esse poetis/Non homines, non di, non concessere columnae
(‘Neither gods, men nor columns allow poets to be mediocre’). The columns referred to were used for advertising new literary works.

13
. Carmelites who followed the reformed rule of Saint John of the Cross. They went barefoot (or rather wore sandals) as a sign of their commitment to a life of austerity.

14
. A reference to the earthquake of 1 February 1755, and indirectly, perhaps, to Voltaire’s
Candide
.

15
. Aesop’s master was Xanthos.

16
. Diderot refers here to the
gardes de la Ferme
, that is, to the agents of the great organization which was contracted to levy some of the most important taxes for the kings of France. The system of tax-farming was open to considerable abuse, led to widespread smuggling and tax evasion, and was greatly disliked.

17
. Charles le Pelletier, who died in 1756, was widely known for his piety and charitable work.

18
. Niccolo Fortiguerra (1674–1735) was the author of
Ricciardetto
, a burlesque version of Ariosto’s
Orlando furioso
. Richardet and Ferragus are characters in Fortiguerra’s work. The continuator of
Don Quixote
is Luis Aliaga, who published his continuation under the name of Alonso Fernandez de Avellaneda.

19
. It is not known to whom Diderot might be referring here. The Invalides is the establishment founded by Louis XIV for the relief of old and infirm soldiers.

20
.
The Reluctant Doctor
, by Molière, Act I, scene 1. The original of Gousse is supposed to be one Louis-George Goussier.

21
. Both Prémontval and the Pigeons have been identified. It is worth noting, however, that Prémontval had to leave France because of his anti-Christian views, rather than for the reasons given by Diderot.

22
. A well-known surgeon of the period. Rousseau refers to him in his
Confessions
.

23
. In the pre-Revolutionary currency, there were twenty
sous
to the
livre
(pound) or
franc
(the terms were often but not always interchangeable). The
écu
was a silver coin worth three or six
livres
, and the
louis
a gold coin worth twenty-four
livres
. The wages of daily paid workers are reckoned to have been between ten and twenty
sous
per day.

24
. ‘He who goes slowly goes safely… he who goes safely goes far.’

25
. Voltaire had objected to the vulgarity of
cul-de-sac, cul
having the sense of ‘bottom’, but some of the connotations of ‘arse’. French usage followed Voltaire, and
impasse
replaced
cul-de-sac
to indicate a dead-end.

26
. Prison situated to the south of Paris.

27
. The eminent critic Jacques Proust, in a recent critical edition of
Jacques
, suggests that there is here an allusion to a well-known belief that a heavy hand with the seasoning is a sign of a woman in love.

28
. This order is the famous
lettre de cachet
, which allowed for arrest and detention without trial for indefinite periods. It could easily be used to secure private and personal ends, as in the episode Diderot relates, and came to be seen as one of the most flagrant abuses of the
ancien régime.

29
. The comte de Saint-Florentin, later duc de La Vrillière, was a favourite of Louis XV and became minister of the royal household. He was held to be somewhat too free in issuing
lettres de cachet.

30
. Goldoni’s play
Le Bourru bienfaisant
was written in French and first performed on 4 November 1771. Diderot had been accused, many years earlier, of plagiarizing Goldoni, and this may explain the reference to Goldoni here.

31
. A well-known Genevan doctor who enjoyed a high reputation among the intelligentsia of Diderot’s generation.

32
. An untranslatable pun.
Jason
in French is close to
jaser
, ‘to chatter’.

33
. Claude-Louis de Regnier, comte de Guerchy.

34
. In other words, the clergy.

35
. A
tripot
was primarily a gambling-den, often maintained with some pretence of respectability by a woman of quality, and equally often functioning as a brothel.

36
. In eighteenth-century French usage, the term
abbé
does not always mean ‘abbot’, but may indicate a priest without specific ecclesiastical duties. It often has pejorative connotations, implying venality, immorality, and lack of belief and vocation.

37
. Respected seventeenth-century French churchmen. Dangerous from the anti-Christian perspective of Jacques’ Captain because likely to foster a favourable attitude to the Christian religion.

38
. Jansenism, in its seventeenth-century origins, was both a theological tendency, marked by its claim to return to a stricter understanding of certain aspects of the Church’s teaching (particularly on human nature and divine grace), and a rigorist reaction to what were perceived as laxist tendencies in the Church. These, often associated with the Jesuits, came to be referred to as Molinism, after the Spanish Jesuit Molina. It is fair to say that by the second half of the eighteenth century the great issues that had animated controversy in the seventeenth century had in large measure ceased to be of primary importance. Jansenism was petering out into various forms of opposition to the Church hierarchy or to ultramontanism, while Molinism in turn came to mean little more than anti-Jansenism. Madame de La Pommeraye’s dismissive reference may be seen as indicative of her own indifference to matters religious, but also as representative of much of public opinion.

39
. A school for the daughters of the nobility was established by Louis XIV’s second wife, Madame de Maintenon, in the convent of Saint-Cyr in 1685. More important, perhaps, is the fact that this is one of several examples of Diderot’s teasing the reader; here, by drawing attention to the ‘romantic’ possibilities offered by the hostess’s own life-story and at the same time refusing it to the reader.

40
. A town which was only five miles from Paris.

41
. This list of writers of poetics is taken from the title of a work by the abbé Batteux, but typically, Diderot replaces the last author, Despréaux, by Le Bossu merely for the sake of an untranslatable pun –
bossu
meaning ‘crooked’ or ‘hunch-backed’ in French.

42
. Another doctor of Swiss origin admired by Diderot.

43
. No one has satisfactorily established whether this list refers to historical persons, nor is it obvious that the effort would be worthwhile.

44
. The quarrel between Jacques and his master takes on an added historical and political resonance when one remembers that a
jacques
was the traditional term of contempt for the French peasant.

45
. This passage is probably an allusion to the political conflict between the monarchy and the
parlements
– particularly that of Paris – in eighteenth-century France. The
parlements
were the great courts of justice of the kingdom. The
parlementaires
, the great hereditary magistrates of these courts, claimed to be the defenders of the fundamental laws of the kingdom, and used their power to withhold ratification of royal decrees in order to assert their importance.

46
. Premonstratensians were an order of regular canons founded by Saint Norbert in 1120. They had a reputation for social exclusiveness.

47
. A passage which well illustrates the difficulty that the reader has in deciding on what level to take the philosophical issues advanced in the book.

48
. On Jansenism and laxism, see
note 38
. The Papal Bull
Unigenitus
was promulgated in 1713. It condemned a number of propositions in a work by the Jansenist Quesnel, and was fiercely opposed for a further fifty years or more. The bishop of Mirepoix had much influence with Louis XV and was hostile to Jansenism.

49
. An
in pace
is a monastic prison cell.

50
. Piron was a celebrated wit who died in 1773, and whose works were edited by a rather prudish gentleman called Rigoley de Juvigny. The abbé Vatri was a near-contemporary of Piron and a classical scholar.

51
. This reference reflects Diderot’s preoccupation with the commercial pressures that lead artists to betray their talent.

52
. The image of the chrysalis and the butterfly is from the
Purgatorio
, Canto X, ll. 124–6. The references to the heresiarchs, to the treacherous (rather than ungrateful as Diderot terms them) and to the slothful (‘vile’ is closer to Dante) come from the
Inferno
, Cantos IX, XXXII and XXXIII respectively.

53
. The sense of this remark becomes clearer when one learns that from the word for christening cap or bonnet (
béguin
), French has formed the verb
embéguiner
, with the secondary meaning of ‘to persuade someone to accept a foolish idea or belief’. Jacques’ meaning is violently anti-Christian.

54
. Madame de Parme was the eldest daughter of Louis XV. She died in 1759; the duc de Chevreuse in 1771.

55
. The genealogy occurs in the first chapter of Matthew’s gospel.

56
. Ferragus, in Fortiguerra’s
Ricciardetto
, is castrated for attempting to rape a nun. As he lies delirious on his death-bed, Lucifer appears before him, taunting him with the evidence of his lost virility.

57
. The reference is to the prince de Condé, one of the greatest French generals of the seventeenth century.

58
.
La Farce de Maître Pathelin
, written in the 1460s.

59
. William Pitt, the Elder, made the speech in the House of Commons in 1759.

60
. Jean-Baptiste Rousseau was accused of writing obscene and slanderous verses. He defended himself in a 1712 edition of his works. Voltaire’s mock-heroic epic poem
La Pucelle
(‘The Virgin’) plays on the theme of Joan of Arc’s virginity and its preservation.

61
. Montaigne,
Essays
, book III, chapter 5. The Latin quotation is from
Martial’s epigrams, book I, no. 4, l. 8, and means, ‘Our page is licentious, but our life pure.’