egrets sur ma
Vieille Robe de Chambre, Ceci n'est pas un conte_, etc. Thirdly, and to
be spoken of in more detail, come the things that are nearest actual
novels, and in some cases are called so, _Le Neveu de Rameau_, the
"unspeakable" _Bijoux Indiscrets_, _Jacques le Fataliste_ (the matrix of
_Le Marquis des Arcis_) and _La Religieuse_.

The "unspeakable" one does not need much speaking from any point of
view. If it is not positively what Carlyle called it, "the beastliest of
all dull novels, past, present, or to come," it really would require a
most unpleasant apprenticeship to scavenging in order to discover a
dirtier and duller. The framework is a flat imitation of Crebillon, the
"insets" are sometimes mere pornography, and the whole thing is
evidently scribbled at a gallop--it was actually a few days' work, to
get money, from some French Curll or Drybutter, to give (the
appropriateness of the thing at least is humorous) to the mistress of
the moment, a Madame de Puisieux,[375] who, if she was like Crebillon's
heroines in morals, cannot have been like the best of them in manners.
Its existence shows, of course, Diderot's worst side, that is to say,
the combination of want of breeding with readiness to get money anyhow.
If it is worth reading at all, which may be doubted, it is to show the
real, if equivocal, value of Crebillon himself. For it is vulgar, which
he never is.

[Sidenote: _Le Neveu de Rameau._]

_Le Neveu de Rameau_, has only touches of obscenity, and it has been
enormously praised by great persons. It is very clever, but it seems to
me that, as a notable critic is said to have observed of something else,
"it has been praised quite enough." It is a sketch, worked out in a sort
of monologue,[376] of something like Diderot's own character without his
genius and without his good fellowship--a gutter-snipe of art and
letters possessed of some talent and of infinite impudence. It shows
Diderot's own power of observation and easy fluid representation of
character and manners, but not, as I venture to think, much more.

[Sidenote: _Jacques le Fataliste._]

_Jacques le Fataliste_ is what may be called, without pedantry or
preciousness, eminently a "document." It is a document of Diderot's
genius only indirectly (save in part), and to those who can read not
only in the lines but between them: it is a document, directly, of the
insatiable and restless energy of the man, and of the damage which this
restlessn