Cinqmars and Derville with Biography

Denis Diderot

May 2024 · The Complete Works of Denis Diderot Book 12 · Marchen Press

About this ebook

Discovered among Diderot’s posthumous papers and first published many years after his death, Cinqmars and Derville (original French Cinqmars et Derville) is a short dramatic dialogue likely drafted in the mid-1740s during Diderot’s early literary experiments. The piece reads as a fragment of a one-act play or conversational scene, and it provides a glimpse into the young Diderot’s social conscience and burgeoning skill in characterizing moral debates. Although no date appears on the manuscript, scholars surmise it was written around 1747 because it shares the youthful earnestness and style of Diderot’s other early dialogues (such as The Skeptic’s Walk or The Indiscreet Jewels period). The historical backdrop hints at real social issues of the time: the title names “Cinqmars,” evoking the 17th-century courtier famous for a failed revolt against Cardinal Richelieu, but in this dialogue, the characters are not historical figures. Instead, Cinqmars and his friend Derville are portrayed as two sensitive young men who have just fled a convivial gathering held at a charity hospital. This setting – a luxurious dinner in a place meant for the poor – and the ensuing conversation reflect Enlightenment unease with social inequality and callousness. Biographically, one might imagine the scene sprang from Diderot’s own observations of Paris society’s contradictions: feasting in the presence of poverty, or witty friends indifferent to suffering around them. Diderot, in his late twenties at the time, was forging his voice as a moraliste. First published in 1761 in the Correspondance littéraire alongside La Marquise de Claye et le comte de Saint-Alban, the dialogues were initially attributed to Diderot by early editors like Depping and Assézat. However, a note in the Stockholm manuscript of the Correspondance, likely penned by Diderot’s collaborator Grimm, suggests the second dialogue may be the work of Madame d’Épinay, a prominent salonnière and intellectual ally. Scholar Herbert Dieckmann cautiously credits Diderot based on stylistic parallels—the taut dialogue, the interplay of irony and moral earnestness—yet acknowledges the absence of manuscript evidence. Since then, scholars have lined up on both sides of the debate.This edition contains a new Afterword by the translator, a new extensive biography covering Diderot's entire life and philosophy, a glossary of Philosophical terms used by Diderot, a chronology of his core life and works, and a summary index of all of Diderot's works. With a clean, modern translation of Diderot's Enlightenment-era French, this edition brings Diderot's thoughts directly into the modern intellectual sphere, tracing the intellectual forces which swept along Diderot and impacted today's secular sphere. The dialogue is straightforward yet emotionally charged. It begins with Cinqmars storming out of the hospital’s gardens, unable to bear the frivolity of his companions in such a solemn environment. Derville follows, puzzled by his friend’s sudden melancholy. What unfolds is a heartfelt plea from Cinqmars: he has been struck by the cruel irony of revelers telling amusing anecdotes and laughing amidst the very grounds where the sick and destitute reside. He asks Derville (and implicitly the reader), how can one in good conscience enjoy delicacies and merriment “in the house of the poor”? This scenario introduces the theme of moral awakening. Cinqmars experiences something akin to what later thinkers would call an acute consciousness or “a sentimental coup.” He cannot continue the party because sympathy and guilt now overwhelm him. Derville, at first, represents the unthinking social man – he doesn’t understand Cinqmars’ broodings and finds it odd that his cheerful friend has turned moralist. The conversation between them becomes an inquiry into the responsibility of the fortunate toward the unfortunate. Cinqmars articulates ideas about decency, empathy, and authenticity: the true measure of humanity, he implies, is to be pained by the pain of others and to find jollity out of place when one’s surroundings call for compassion. Philosophically, this echoes Rousseauian sentiment (though Diderot formulated it independently around the same time Rousseau was writing his early works). It’s that core Enlightenment concept of humanité – the capacity to identify with another’s suffering, which should undergird ethics. Derville, gradually, is moved by Cinqmars’ earnestness. He concedes he had never thought of it that way, and he begins to feel shame for having laughed and feasted where people die hungry. An interesting aspect here is Diderot’s depiction of a change of heart through dialogue: conversation itself, between honest friends, becomes the catalyst for moral growth.There is a youthful fervor in Cinqmars’ lines, with exclamations and rhetorical questions (“N’avez-vous point honte de rire comme vous avez fait?” – “Have you no shame laughing as you did?” he scolds). This gives the dialogue an urgent, almost raw quality. One can sense Diderot’s own voice in Cinqmars’ impassioned speeches condemning thoughtless privilege. Although short and likely incomplete (it ends without a neat resolution, as if it were a scene from a larger play that was never finished), Cinqmars and Derville contains the germ of Diderot’s later thematic preoccupations: the social contract between classes, the call for genuine sentiment, and critique of hollow civility. As a fragment, it might have been a test piece for Diderot in finding how to dramatize a philosophical point. Indeed, the theme of uneasy conscience amid social injustice recurs in his later writings (for instance, the discomfort of enlightened figures witnessing suffering without immediate remedy appears in works like Jacques the Fatalist). Historically, such dialogues contributed to a growing 18th-century literary genre of larmoyant (tearful) scenes that aimed to stir audiences to benevolence – akin to what Diderot would champion in his “bourgeois drama” theory for theater (as in his essay On Dramatic Poetry). In conclusion, though brief, Cinqmars and Derville is a telling artifact of Diderot’s formative years as a writer. Through the lens of two friends’ frank talk, it delivers a timeless message: that true enlightenment isn’t measured by wit or fine taste, but by the capacity to be moved by injustice and to amend one’s behavior accordingly. It’s a call for coherence between setting and action, between moral sentiment and social enjoyment – an insight as relevant in Diderot’s day among the Paris salons as it is in any age where privilege might blind itself to pain. The dialogue ends with the two leaving the garden, suggesting a quiet ethical victory: private decency taking precedence over public diversion. In that understated ending lies Diderot’s youthful hope that individuals can indeed change, one conversation at a time, and that a more compassionate society is within reach if people truly listen to their better feelings.

About the author

Denis Diderot (1713-1784) was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer who became one of the most influential intellectual figures of the Enlightenment. Born to a family of craftsmen in Langres, France, Diderot rose to prominence as co-founder and chief editor of the Encyclopédie, a monumental 28-volume compilation of knowledge that challenged religious authority and promoted rational inquiry. Despite facing censorship and imprisonment for his controversial materialist views, Diderot produced an impressive body of work spanning philosophy, literature, and art criticism, including notable writings such as "Letter on the Blind," "Rameau's Nephew," and "D'Alembert's Dream." His radical ideas on materialism, determinism, and natural selection anticipated later scientific developments, while his experimental approach to literature—featuring open-ended dialogues and unreliable narrators—presaged modern literary techniques. Though many of his most daring philosophical works were published posthumously due to their controversial nature, Diderot's legacy as a champion of intellectual freedom and rational inquiry remains a cornerstone of Western philosophical tradition.