The abbe Le Monnier wrote the worst verses that ever were read, a play that was instantly damned, and a translation of Terence that came into the world dead.  But bad writers are always the most shameless intruders on the time of good critics, and we find Diderot willingly spending hours over the abbe’s handwriting, which was as wretched as what he wrote, and then spending hours more in offering critical observations on verses that were only fit to be thrown into the fire.  The abbe, being absent from Paris and falling short of money, requested Diderot to sell for him his copy of the Encyclopaedia.  “I have sold your Encyclopaedia,” said Diderot, “but did not get so much as I expected, for the rumour spread abroad by those scoundrels of Swiss booksellers, that they were going to issue a revised edition, has done us some harm.  Send for the nine hundred and fifty livres (about L40) that belong to you, and if that is not enough for your expenses, besides the drawer that holds your money is another that holds mine.  I don’t know how much there is, but I will count it all at your disposal."[226]

One Jodin, again, was a literary hack who had been employed on the Encyclopaedia.  He died, leaving a foolish and extravagant widow, and a perverse and violent daughter.  The latter went on to the stage, and Diderot took as much trouble in advising her, in seeking appointments for her, in executing her commissions, in investing her earnings, in dealing with her relatives, as if he had been her own father.  If his counsels on her art are admirable, there is something that moves us with more than admiration in the good sense, the right feeling, the worthiness of his counsels on conduct.  And Diderot did not merely moralise at large.  All that he says is real, pointed, and apt for circumstance and person.  The petulant damsel to whom they were addressed would not be likely to yawn over the sharp remonstrances, the vigorous plain speaking, the downright honesty and visible sincerity of his friendliness.  It appears that she had sense enough not to be offended with the frankness of her father’s old employer, for after he has plainly told her that she is violent, rude, vain, and not always too truthful, she still writes to him from Warsaw, from Dresden, from Bordeaux, praying him to procure a certain bracelet for her, to arrange her mother’s affairs, to find a good investment for twelve thousand francs.  When the mother was in the depths of indigence, Diderot insisted that she should take her meals at his own table.  And all this for no other reason than that the troublesome pair had been thrown in his way by the chance of human circumstance, and needed help which he was able, not without sacrifice, to give.  Mademoiselle Jodin was hardly worthy of so good a friend.  Her parents were Protestants, and as she was a convert, she enjoyed a pension of some eight pounds a year.  That did not prevent her from one day indulging in some too sprightly sallies, as the host was carried along the street.  For this she was put into prison, and that is our last glimpse of the light creature.[227]