nymous letter to the effect that if he wished to avenge
himself on the Jesuits, there were both important documents and money at
his command. Diderot replied that he was in no want of money, and that
he had no time to spare for Jesuit documents.[132] He trusted to reason.
Neither reason nor eloquence availed against the credit at court of the
ecclesiastical cabal. The sale of the second volume of the Encyclopaedia
was stopped by orders which Malesherbes was reluctantly compelled to
issue. A decree of the king's council (Feb. 7, 1752) suppressed both
volumes, as containing maxims hostile to the royal authority and to
religion. The publishers were forbidden to reprint them, and the
booksellers were forbidden to deliver any copies that might still be in
hand. The decree, however, contained no prohibition of the continuance
of the work. It was probably not meant to do anything more serious than
to pacify the Jesuits, and lend an apparent justification to the
officious pastorals of the great prelates. Some even thought that the
aim of the government was to forestall severer proceedings on the part
of the parliament of lawyers;[133] for corporations of lawyers have
seldom been less bigoted or obstructive than corporations of churchmen.
Nor were lawyers and priests the only foes. Even the base and despicable
jealousies of booksellers counted for something in the storm.[134]

A curious triumph awaited the harassed Diderot.

He was compelled, under pain of a second incarceration, to hand over to
the authorities all the papers, proof-sheets, and plates in his
possession. The Jesuit cabal supposed that if they could obtain the
materials for the future volumes, they could easily arrange and
manipulate them to suit their own purposes. Their ignorance and
presumption were speedily confounded. In taking Diderot's papers, they
had forgotten, as Grimm says, to take his head and his genius: they had
forgotten to ask him for a key to articles which, so far from
understanding, they with some confusion vainly strove even to decipher.
The government was obliged (May 1752) to appeal to Diderot and
D'Alembert to resume a work for which their enemies had thus proved
themselves incompetent. Yet, by one of the meannesses of decaying
authority, the decree of three months before was left suspended over
their heads.[135]

The third volume of the Encyclopaedia appeared in the autumn of 1753.
D'Alembert prefixed an introduction, vindicating himself