ny years, are
frank betrayals of his character and his life. Her loss saddened his
last days, but the days of sorrow were few. In July 1784, Diderot
died. His reputation and influence were from time to time enhanced
by posthumous publications. Other writers of his century impressed
their own personalities more distinctly and powerfully upon society;
no other writer mingled his genius so completely with external things,
or responded so fully and variously to the stimulus of the spirit
of his age.

II

The French philosophical movement--the "Illumination"--of the
eighteenth century, proceeds in part from the empiricism of Locke,
in part from the remarkable development of physical and natural
science; it incorporated the conclusions of English deism, and
advanced from deism to atheism. An intellectual centre for the
movement was provided by the _Encyclopedie_; a social centre was found
in Parisian _salons_. It was sustained and invigorated by the passion
for freedom and for justice asserting itself against the despotism
and abuses of government and against the oppressions and abuses of
the Church. The opposing forces were feeble, incompetent,
disorganised. The methods of government were, in truth,
indefensible; religion had surrendered dogma, and lost the austerity
of morals; within the citadel of the Church were many professed and
many secret allies of the philosophers.

While in England an apologetic literature arose, profound in thought
and adequate in learning, in France no sustained resistance was
offered to the inroad of free thought. Episcopal fulminations rolled
like stage thunder; the Bastille and Vincennes were holiday retreats
for fatigued combatants; imprisonment was tempered with cajoleries;
the censors of the press connived with their victims. The Chancellor
D'AGUESSEAU (1668-1751), an estimable magistrate, a dignified orator,
maintained the old seriousness of life and morals, and received the
reward of exile. The good ROLLIN (1661-1741) dictated lessons to youth
drawn from antiquity and Christianity, narrated ancient history, and
discoursed admirably on a plan of studies with a view to form the
heart and mind; an amiable Christian Nestor, he was not a man-at-arms.
The Abbe Guenee replied to Voltaire with judgment, wit, and erudition,
in his _Lettres de quelques Juifs_ (1769), but it was a single victory
in a campaign of many battles. The satire of Gilbert, _Le Dix-huitieme
Siecle_, is rudely vigorous;