DIDEROT DENIS: (1713-1784) French philosopher, art critic and writer, a significant figure during the Age of Enlightenment. An extremely rare and important autograph manuscript, unsigned, seven pages, 8vo, n.p., n.d (c.1771), in French. The manuscript, written in Diderot’s small, neat hand, is entitled Satyre contre le luxe a la mainiere de Perse (‘Satire against luxury in the Persian style’) and takes the form of a dialogue between two characters, the first a sceptic of the times, not far removed from Jean-Jacques Rousseau, radical in his rejection of luxury and what it represents, and the second character one who judges that all is not so bad in the world as it is. ‘Vous jetez sur les diverses societes de l'espece humaine un regard si chargin, que je ne connais plus guere qu'un moyen de vous contenter: c'est de ramener l'age d'or’ (Translation: ‘You look at the various societies of the human race with such a distrustful eye that I can think of only one way of satisfying you: that is to bring back the golden age’) begins the second, and with spartan austerity, the former rejects all sweetness of life, ‘Vous vous trompez. Une vie consumee a soupirer aux pieds d'une bergere n'est point de tout mon fait. Je veux que l'homme travaille. Je veux qu'il souffre. Sous en etat de nature qui irait au-devant de tous ses voeux, ou la branche se courberait pour approcher le fruit de sa main, il serait faineant; et n'en deplaise aux poetes, qui dit faineant dit mechant’ (Translation: ‘You're wrong. A life spent sighing at the feet of a shepherdess is not entirely my doing. I want man to work. I want him to suffer. Under a state of nature which would fulfil all his wishes, or the branch would bend to bring the fruit nearer to his hand, he would be a faineant; and, with all due respect to the poets, who says faineant says villain’), and Rousseau’s name is naturally introduced, ‘Depouillez-vous donc; suivez le conseil de Jean-Jacques, et faites-vous sauvage’ (Translation: ‘Take off your clothes; follow Jean-Jacques' advice, and make yourself wild’) before the interlocutor sweeps aside the Voltairean irony and gives the subject a political twist, ‘Ce serait bien le mieux. La, du moins, il n'ya a d'inegalite que celle qu'il a plu a la nature de mettre entre ses enfants; et les forets ne retentissent pas de cette variete de plaintes, que des maux sans nombre arrachent a l'homme dans ce bienheureux etat de la societe’ (Translation: ‘That would be the best. Here, at least, there is no inequality except that which it has pleased nature to place between her children; and the forests do not resound with that variety of complaints, which countless evils wring from man in this blessed state of society’), the other attempts moderation and advocates a form of resignation to the order of things as it is, ‘Mon ami, aimons notre paitre; aimons nos contemporains; soumettons-nous a un ordre de choses qui pourrait par hasard etre meilleur ou plus mauvais; jouissons des avantages de notre condition. Si nous y voyons des defauts, et il y en a sans doute, attendons-en le remede de l'experience et de la sagesse de nos maitres; et restons ici’ (Translation: ‘My friend, let us love our pasture; let us love our contemporaries; let us submit to an order of things which might by chance be better or worse; let us enjoy the advantages of our condition. If we see any faults in it, and there undoubtedly are, let us await the remedy of the experience and wisdom of our masters; and let us remain here’), and then the other launces into a violent diatribe against corrupting money, ‘Rester ici, moi! moi! y reste celui qui peut voir avec patience un peuple qui se pretend civilise, et le plus civilise de la terre, mettre a l'encan l'exercise des fonctions civiles; mon coeur se gonfle, et un jour de ma vie, non, un jour de ma vie, je ne le passe pas sans charger d'imprecations celui qui rendit les charges venales. Car c'est de la, oui. c'est de la et de la situation des grands exacteurs que sont decoules tous nos maux. Au moment ou l'on put arriver a tout avec de l'or, on voulut avoir de l'or; et le merite, qui ne conduisait a rien, ne fut rien. Il n'y eut plus aucune emulation honnete. L'educatin resta sans aucune base solide’ (Translation: ‘To remain here, me! me! to remain here is to be the one who can patiently watch a people who claim to be civilised, and the most civilised on earth, auction off the exercise of civil functions; my heart swells, and one day of my life, no, one day of my life, I will not spend it without charging with imprecations the one who made the offices venal. For it is from this, yes. it is from this and from the situation of the great tax collectors that all our ills have arisen. At the moment when one could achieve everything with gold, one wanted to have gold; and merit, which led to nothing, became nothing. There was no longer any honest emulation. Education remained without any solid foundation’), further describing the deleterious effects of the race for wealth, the desire to possess more and more that leads humanity to its ruin, ‘L'elephant se gonfla pour accroitre sa taille, la boeuf imita l'elephant; la grenouille eut la meme manie, qui remonta d'elle a l'elephant; et, dans ce mouvement reciproque, les trois animaux perirent: triste, mais image reelle d'une nation abandonnee a un luxe, symbole de la richesse des uns, et masque de la misere generale du reste’ (Translation: ‘The elephant inflated itself to increase its size, the ox imitated the elephant; the frog had the same mania, which went up from it to the elephant; and, in this reciprocal movement, the three animals lost: sad, but a real image of a nation abandoned to a luxury, symbol of the wealth of some, and mask of the general misery of the rest’), as well as the corruption of the morals, the contempt for study, the disappearance of all decency being the consequences, ‘On rampa, on s'avilit, on se prostitua dans toutes les conditions. Il n'y eut plus de distinction entre les moyens d'acquerir. Honnetes, malhonnetes, tous furent bons’ (Translation: ‘We crawled, we debased ourselves, we prostituted ourselves in all conditions. There was no longer any distinction between the means of acquisition. Honest, dishonest, all were good’), the other then advances the argument that this luxury engenders the development of art and industry, ‘Mais ne vous rejouissez-vous pas de voir la debauche, la dissipation, le faste, ecrouler ces masses enormes d'or? C'est par ce ,oyen qu'on nous restitue goutte a goutte ce sang dont nous sommes epuises. Il nous revient par une foule de mains occupees. Ce luxe, contre lequel vous vous recriez, n'est-ce pas lui qui soutient le ciseau dans la main du statuaire, la palette au puce du peintre, la navette?’ (Translation: ‘But don't you rejoice to see debauchery, dissipation and splendour crush these huge masses of gold? It is by this means that we are given back drop by drop the blood from which we are exhausted. It comes back to us through a host of busy hands. This luxury, against which you recoil, is it not that which sustains the chisel in the hand of the statuary, the palette on the chip of the painter, the shuttle?’), OWING TO LIMITATIONS IMPOSED BY THE SALEROOM THE COMPLETE DESCRIPTION FOR THIS LOT CAN NOT BE DISPLAYED. Please contact IAA Europe directly for further information.
