Denis DIDEROT Lot n° 17

(1713-1784) writer. L.A.S., April 23, 1757, [to Jean-François MARMONTEL]; 1 page in-4. On Marmontel's collaboration in the Encyclopédie. Diderot has read Marmontel's articles Grands et Grandeur for the Encyclopédie... "I find them thought with boldness, written with strength and precision, and very worthy of you. Do not fear that they will cause you any trouble; everything seems to me to be perfectly safe; and then, when they are printed, if there were anything that D'ALEMBERT and I thought could compromise your rest or your future fortune, we would draw a line under it. We would regret the word that we would erase, but the word would be erased"... Diderot asks Marmontel to come and see him, and speaks about Mademoiselle CLAIRON who offered him entries to the Comédie Française. He asks him for his articles, to which he does not find "a word neither to cut nor to add".