Catherine the Great

In 1765, Catherine made a grand gesture to Diderot that became the talk of Europe. Three children had been born to Diderot and his wife, and all three had died. Then, when Madame Diderot was forty-three, a fourth child was born, a daughter, Marie Angélique. Diderot idolized this little girl and treasured the time he spent with her. He knew that he must provide for her dowry. But he had no money; everything had gone into the Encyclopedia. He decided to sell his only valuable possession, his library. Catherine heard about his decision from Diderot’s friend, her ambassador to France and Holland, Prince Dmitry Golitsyn. Diderot had asked fifteen thousand pounds for his books. Catherine offered sixteen thousand but attached a condition: the books should remain in Diderot’s possession for his lifetime. “It would be cruel to separate a scholar from his books,” she explained. Diderot thus became—without either he or his books leaving Paris—Catherine’s librarian. For this service, she paid him a salary of a thousand pounds a year. The following year, when the salary was forgotten and went unpaid, an embarrassed Catherine sent Diderot fifty thousand pounds—to cover fifty years in advance, she said.

The empress’s purchase of Diderot’s library captured the imagination of literary Europe. Diderot, astonished, wrote to his benefactress: “Great princess, I prostrate myself at your feet. I reach out my arms to you, I would speak to you, but my soul faints, my mind grows cloudy.… Oh, Catherine, be sure that you do not reign more powerfully in Petersburg than in Paris.” Voltaire joined in: “Diderot, d’Alembert and I—we are three who would build you altars.… Would one ever have suspected fifty years ago that one day the Scythians [Russians] would so nobly recompense in Paris the virtue, science, and philosophy that are treated so shamefully among us.” From Grimm: “Thirty years of labor have not brought Diderot the slightest recompense. It has pleased the Empress of Russia to pay the debt of France.” Catherine’s response was, “I never thought that buying Diderot’s library would bring me so many compliments.”

There was, no doubt, a larger purpose behind her generosity. If so, the gift achieved its objective: Europeans now believed that there were things in the east other than snow and wolves. Diderot threw himself into the task of recruiting artistic and architectural talent for Catherine. His house was turned into an employment agency on her behalf. Writers, artists, scientists, architects, and engineers swarmed to solicit appointments in St. Petersburg.

In 1773, Diderot, who hated to travel and had never before left France, summoned the resolution to embark on the journey to Russia that he felt he owed to Catherine. He was sixty years old, subject to stomach cramps and drafts of cold air, and he was afraid of Russian food. The prospect of crossing Europe to reach a country famous for violence and freezing temperatures was daunting; nevertheless, he felt an obligation to thank his benefactress in person. In May 1773, he set out. He got only as far as The Hague, where he halted for three months to rest with his friend Prince Dmitry Golitsyn.

With autumn approaching, the philosopher set out on the second stage of his journey. Huddled and coughing in a post chaise, he hoped to reach his destination before extreme cold arrived. Unfortunately, it was snowing in the Russian capital when he arrived on October 8, and he collapsed into bed. The day after his arrival he was awakened by the pealing of bells and the booming of cannon celebrating the wedding of the nineteen-year-old heir to the throne, Grand Duke Paul, to Princess Wilhelmina of Hesse-Darmstadt. Diderot, indifferent to ceremonials, avoided the festivities; this inclination was reinforced by his having nothing to wear other than plain black clothes and by his having left his wig behind somewhere during his journey.