Denis Diderot

“ I am not exaggerating anything, as can be attested to by M. Le Camus, doctor of medicine, who consoled her when she was troubled and cared for her when she was in need, who remained by her side in the attic that her poverty had relegated her to, and who closed her eyes when she died. But I am forgetting one of her first misfortunes: the persecution that she had to suffer at the hands of a family outraged by the scandalous and public relationship. Both truth and lies were employed to dispose of her liberty in a humiliating manner. ”

“ You tell me of your passion with such grace and sensitivity that I would be, I think, angry if you were to stop. Just the idea of losing your company or of being deprived of your friendship is enough to make me miserable. You are a good man, if there ever was one. Your goodness and sweetness of character is incomparable. I do not believe that a heart can fall into better hands. I appeal to my own from morning till night in your favor, but appeal in vain to that which does not desire it. ”

“ Her eyes opened halfway; one could hear a muffled murmuring in her throat. She was trying to say: I am odious to you. She only articulated the last syllables of the phrase, then issued a piercing cry. Her eyelids lowered, and the fainting spell began again. Gardeil, seated coldly on his armchair, his elbow resting on the table and head rested on his hand, watched her without emotion and left it to me to care for her. I told him repeatedly: `But, monsieur, she is dying... we have to call for someone. ́ He answered me by smiling and shrugging his shoulders: `Women lead a hard life. ”

“ I conducted myself to her quarters, where I found Doctor Le Camus waiting for us. The passion that he felt for this young woman differed little from hers for Gardeil. I recounted our visit to him, and while I spoke the signs of his anger, pain, indignation...
—It was not too difficult to see from his face that your failure did not displease him all that much.
—It is true.
—There is man for you. He is no better than that. ”

“ You believe that a good man has only to strip a woman of everything she has and leave her? ́ `What do you want me to do? I am begging as much as she is. ́ `What do I want you to do? To associate your misery with the one that you have reduced her to. ́ `You enjoyed saying that. She would be no better for it, and I would be much worse. ́ `You would act like this to a friend that has sacrificed everything for you? ́ `A friend! A friend! I do not have much faith in friends, and this experience has taught me to have no passion for them. ”

“ It is a peculiarity of women to never think of the future; it is not mine... ́ The minister was in Paris. His hotel was only a foot from rue Sainte-Marguerite. Tanié met with him there and was hired. He returned with eyes dry and heart wrung out. `Madame, ́ he said to her, `I saw M. de Maurepas; I have given him my word. I will go, I will go. And you will be satisfied. ́ `Oh! My love!... ́ Madame Reymer drops her line of work, throws herself on Tanié, tosses her arms around his neck, devastates him with kisses and sweet nothings. ”

“ I call her by her own name because the poor thing is no more, because her life can only honor it in every well-made mind and award it the admiration, the regret and the tears of those that nature will favor or punish with a small portion of the sensibility of her soul. ”

“ It is true that it would have been impossible for the shadow of a doubt to enter a soul as pure as Tanié ́s. The one thing I did occasionally notice was that Madame Reymer quickly forgot her original poverty, was tormented by her love of wealth and splendor, was humiliated that so beautiful a woman had traveled on foot... ”

“ If there is a good and honest La Chaux, she will come to be shared by a Gardeil [8] , so that everything happens for the best.
One might answer that it is rash to make so definitive a pronouncement on the character of a man based on a single act; that a rule so severe would reduce the number of good men on earth to less than the Christian Gospel admits as elect in heaven; that one can be fickle in love, even claim little devotion to women without being deprived of honor or probity; that one is in control neither of suppressing a passion that flares up, nor of prolonging one that is ending ”

“ We do not want to appear out of place anywhere; so the literary hack politicizes, the political pundit talks metaphysics, the metaphysician moralizes, the moralist talks finance, the financier, letters or logic. Rather than listen or keep quiet, each ramble on about what they are ignorant of, and everyone bores each other with silly vanity or politeness.
—You are in a bad mood.
—I usually am.
—And I think it is appropriate for me to reserve my vignette for a better time. ”

“ Contempt is a terrible thing in a relationship, and for a woman!...
—I sent her to seek out a litter, as she was hardly in a state to walk. We arrive at Gardeil's, at this huge new house, the only one on the right side of Hyacinthe street when coming from Saint-Michel square. The porters stop; they open the doors. I wait. She does not get out. I lean over and I see a woman seized with a universal trembling. ”

“ We men complain a great deal, we criticize them occasionally. We watch the years go by like so many moments, carried off by the evil that shadows us; and we only think to cower at the strength of certain natural attractions, especially those of us with sensitive souls or ardent imaginations. ”

“ Whether or not it be to one ́s taste, it is only good taste to strike the tone given. When meeting company, we customarily tidy up appearances at the door of the apartment for whomever we are seeing; we pretend to be funny when we are sad ”

“ The success of the enterprise demanded a lively and intelligent man. He had his eye on Tanié, to whom he had entrusted the direction of many important business ventures while he was at the Cape, which were always carried out to the satisfaction of the minister. ”

“ The spark that alights by chance on a powder keg does not produce so terrible an effect. The finger ready to light the fatal spark over you or me is perhaps raised.
M. d ́Hérouville, wanting to speed up his project, greatly overworked his colleagues. Gardeil ́s health suffered for it. To lighten his load Mademoiselle de La Chaux learned Hebrew, and while her lover rested she spent a portion of the night translating and transcribing bits of Hebrew. It came time to tackle the Greek authors ”

“ He has always been ambitious. The loss of my health, of my beauty, I have suffered so much and am so tired; boredom, weariness. ́ `We cease to be lovers, but remain friends. ́ `I have become an unbearable object ”

“ Love and Friendship, comedy, 1763. The Pastoral Romance of Daphnis and Chloe, translated from Longus ́ Greek by Amyot, with a double translation, Paris, 1757. This new translation by Le Camus is still worth reading after the one just published by M. Courier in Sainte-Pélagie, where he was detained for a work commissioned by the estate of Chambord. Paris, 1821. (BR.)
[8] Gardeil died on April 19, 1808, at the age of 82. We have from him a Translation of Hippocrates ́ Medical Works, from the Greek text according to the Foës edition, Toulouse, 1801. (Br.) —He Practiced in Montpellier. ”

“ Le Camus (Antoine) , who left behind other memories of charity.
We owe to him a large number of works of literature and of medicine. We will here cite only: The Medicine of the Mind, Paris, 1753. Strategy for Wiping Out Smallpox, 1767. Practical Medicine Made Simpler, More Reliable and More Methodical, 1769. Numerous memoirs on different subjects of medicine. Abdéker, or the Art of Conserving Beauty, 1754-1756. ”