DIDEROT (Denis). Autograph letter to Doctor... - Lot 188 - Osenat

Lot 188
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12000 - 16000 EUR
DIDEROT (Denis). Autograph letter to Doctor... - Lot 188 - Osenat
DIDEROT (Denis). Autograph letter to Doctor Nicolas-Gabriel Clerc. The Hague, June 15, 1774. 3 pp. in-4, small cracks with restored folds, small angular wetnesses. SUPERB LETTER ON A NEW EDITION OF THE ENCYCLOPEDIA HE HOPES TO FINANCE BY CATHERINE II, written on his way back from his trip to Russia (October 1773-March 1774). Doctor of the Grand Duke, inspector of the hospital of Moscow, member of the Academy of Saint-Petersburg, Doctor Clerc announced to Diderot that General Betski, chamberlain of the tsarina, was ready to finance this publication, but with some reservations. "How! True! The Encyclopedia is a decided affair! No bad joke, doctor, please. WHAT, I WILL NOT DIE WITHOUT HAVING DONE A GOOD DEED AND REDONE A GREAT WORK, A GOOD DEED, BY ENDOWING, FOR MY PART, AN ESTABLISHMENT RAISED BY HUMANITY, REDONE A GREAT WORK, IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE PLAN ON WHICH IT HAS BEEN PLANNED, I shall not die without having boasted with dignity of the wickedness of my enemies, I shall not die without having raised an obelisk on which is read: "TO THE HONOUR OF THE RUSSIANS and their sovereign and to whose shame it shall belong." ...I will not die without having left some mark on the earth that time will not erase. I will put the last fifteen years of my life into it, but what do you think I have to do better? I was, when I received your letter, preparing a complete edition of my books. I have left everything here. These two things cannot go together, let us do the Encyclopaedia, and let some good soul gather up my rags when I am dead. Now that I am thinking about it more seriously, General [Betski]'s circumspection no longer surprises me. The matter of interest cannot be as clear to him as that of usefulness and glory to the sovereign. He has given himself the time to hear and to know me. Great men are so prone to meet rascals that they mistrust honest people. If we had been ten or twelve years in their place, we would have been as suspicious as they are. Mr. de Sartine [Antoi
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