e from
Rulhiere was a promise that the work should not be published during the
Empress's lifetime. It was actually given to the world in 1797. When
Diderot was at St. Petersburg, the Empress was importunate to know the
contents of the manuscript, which he had seen, but of which she was
unable to procure a copy. "As far as you are concerned," he said, "if
you attach great importance, Madame, to the decencies and virtues, the
worn-out rags of your sex, this work is a satire against you; but if
large views and masculine and patriotic designs concern you more, the
author depicts you as a great princess." The Empress answered that this
only increased her desire to read the book. Diderot himself truly enough
described it as a historic romance, containing a mixed tissue of lies
and truths that posterity would compare to a chapter of Tacitus.[83]
Perhaps the only piece of it that posterity will really value is the
page in which the writer describes Catherine's personal appearance; her
broad and open brow, her large and slightly double chin, her hair of
resplendent chestnut, her eyes of a brilliant brown into which the
reflections of the light brought shades of blue. "Pride," he says, "is
the true characteristic of her physiognomy. The amiability and grace
which are there too only seem to penetrating eyes to be the effect of an
extreme desire to please, and these seductive expressions somehow let
the design of seducing be rather too clearly seen."

[83] _Satire I. sur les caracteres, etc. Oeuv._, vi. 313.

The first Frenchman whom Catherine welcomed in person to her court was
Falconet, of whose controversy with the philosopher we shall have a few
words to say in a later chapter. This introduction to her was due to
Diderot. She had entreated him to find for her a sculptor who would
undertake a colossal statue of Peter the Great. Falconet was at the
height of his reputation in his own country; in leaving it he seems to
have been actuated by no other motive than the desire of an opportunity
of erecting an immense monument of his art, though Diderot's eloquence
was not wanting. Falconet had the proverbial temperament of artistic
genius. Diderot called him the Jean Jacques of sculpture. He had none of
the rapacity for money which has distinguished so many artists in their
dealings with foreign princes, but he was irritable, turbulent,
restless, intractable. He was a chivalrous defender of poorer brethren
in art, and he was never