Key takeaways
- Diderot praises his Vernet for exactly the harmony and unity his study lost in chapter 2.
- He expects the debts to be cleared and the remorse to fade in time, and swears he will not start collecting.
- The essay ends on a line adapted from Aristippus, "I have Laïs, but Laïs does not have me," and the claim that the painting cost him nothing, which a note in the first edition corrects.
The prayer is over. Diderot turns back to his friend to show off the painting he has just begged God to spare, and then, in one last short paragraph, settles his accounts. This is the end of the essay.
The text, with notes
Oh, my friend, what a beautiful Vernet I own. The subject is the end of a storm, with no great disaster. The waves are still rough and the sky full of clouds; the sailors are busy about their stranded ship; the local people come running down from the nearby mountains. What intelligence this artist has. He needed only a handful of main figures to convey everything about the moment he chose. How true the whole scene is. How lightly, easily and forcefully it is all painted. I mean to keep this token of his friendship. I want my son-in-law to hand it down to his children, and they to theirs, and they to the children who will be born to them.
Note. In 1769 Diderot’s daughter, Marie-Angélique, was a teenager; she married Abel Caroillon de Vandeul in 1772. The son-in-law who will pass the painting down the generations is still imaginary, which makes the line both touching and revealing. A possession only just acquired has already been written into the family’s future.
If you could see how well the piece hangs together: how harmonious everything in it is, how one effect leads into the next, how everything shows to advantage without effort or fuss; how hazy those mountains on the right are; how fine the rocks and the buildings perched on them; how picturesque that tree; how the light falls on that terrace and fades across it; how the figures are placed, true, busy, natural, alive; how they hold your interest; the strength with which they are painted, the purity with which they are drawn; how they stand out from the background; the vast reach of that space; the truth of that water; those clouds, that sky, that horizon. Here the background is kept in shadow and the foreground lit, the opposite of the usual practice. Come and see my Vernet, but do not take it from me.
Note. Read this paragraph next to chapter 2. Everything Diderot says his study has lost, the ensemble, the harmony, the unity, he finds again in the painting. Even the verb for the way its effects work together is s’enchaîner, to link up like a chain. The harmony that delights him on canvas is the same harmony he spent a small fortune chasing around his room.
In time the debts will be paid, the remorse will quiet down, and my pleasure will be pure. Have no fear that a mania for piling up beautiful things will take hold of me. The friends I had, I still have, and there are no more of them than before. I have Laïs, but Laïs does not have me. Happy in her arms, I am ready to give her up to the one I come to love, whom she would make happier than she makes me. And to tell you my secret, in a whisper: this Laïs, who sells herself so dear to others, cost me nothing.
Note. Laïs of Corinth was a celebrated courtesan of ancient Greece, said to be the most beautiful woman of her time, and Aristippus, the pleasure-loving philosopher of chapter 2, kept company with her. His best-known saying was “I possess, I am not possessed.” Diderot borrows it for his painting: the note to the reader printed with the first edition of 1772 explains that “Laïs” is his name for the Vernet. It is the right ending for an essay in which a man has spent eight pages being owned by his things, and claims in its last lines that this one does not own him.
Note. The same 1772 note corrects the last sentence. Vernet wanted to give the painting as a present, it says, but Diderot insisted on paying at least for the paint, and made him accept twenty-five louis, which at 24 livres to the louis comes to 600 livres. “It is nothing,” the note adds, “but always a great deal for a philosopher’s purse.” Like much of the essay, the ending is true in spirit and generous with the facts.
What to notice
The essay ends where most spending chains end: with a promise that the bills will be paid, a vow not to do it again, and one beloved thing kept back. Diderot never says the new study was a mistake. He says that luxury has costs that do not show on the invoice, among them debt, worry, a changed reputation and a self that is harder to recognize, and he lets his reader do the adding. Our page of the lines people quote most collects the essay’s best sentences, and the hub page explains how the pattern Diderot described got its name.
Read this chapter in the original French
Ô mon ami, le beau Vernet que je possède ! Le sujet est la fin d’une tempête sans catastrophe fâcheuse. Les flots sont encore agités ; le ciel couvert de nuages ; les matelots s’occupent sur leur navire échoué ; les habitants accourent des montagnes voisines. Que cet artiste a d’esprit ! Il ne lui a fallu qu’un petit nombre de figures principales pour rendre toutes les circonstances de l’instant qu’il a choisi. Comme toute cette scène est vraie ! Comme tout est peint avec légèreté, facilité et vigueur ! Je veux garder ce témoignage de son amitié. Je veux que mon gendre le transmette à ses enfants, ses enfants aux leurs, et ceux-ci aux enfants qui naîtront d’eux.
Si vous voyiez le bel ensemble de ce morceau ; comme tout y est harmonieux ; comme les effets s’y enchaînent ; comme tout se fait valoir sans effort et sans apprêt ; comme ces montagnes de la droite sont vaporeuses ; comme ces rochers et les édifices surimposés sont beaux ; comme cet arbre est pittoresque ; comme cette terrasse est éclairée ; comme la lumière s’y dégrade ; comme ces figures sont disposées, vraies, agissantes, naturelles, vivantes ; comme elles intéressent ; la force dont elles sont peintes ; la pureté dont elles sont dessinées ; comme elles se détachent du fond ; l’énorme étendue de cet espace ; la vérité de ces eaux ; ces nuées, ce ciel, cet horizon ! Ici le fond est privé de lumière et le devant éclairé, au contraire du technique commun. Venez voir mon Vernet ; mais ne me l’ôtez pas.
Avec le temps, les dettes s’acquitteront ; le remords s’apaisera ; et j’aurai une jouissance pure. Ne craignez pas que la fureur d’entasser de belles choses me prenne. Les amis que j’avais, je les ai ; et le nombre n’en est pas augmenté. J’ai Laïs, mais Laïs ne m’a pas. Heureux entre ses bras, je suis prêt à la céder à celui que j’aimerai et qu’elle rendrait plus heureux que moi. Et pour vous dire mon secret à l’oreille, cette Laïs, qui se vend si cher aux autres, ne m’a rien coûté.
Sources
- Regrets sur ma vieille robe de chambre (Denis Diderot, Œuvres complètes, edited by J. Assézat and M. Tourneux, Garnier, 1875, volume IV, pages 5 to 12) The French text we translate from, with the note to the reader from the 1772 edition that explains who Laïs is and what the painting cost.
- Lais of Corinth (Wikipedia) The courtesan of ancient Greece whose name Diderot gives his painting.
- Aristippus (Wikipedia) The philosopher of pleasure, his time with Laïs and his saying "I possess, I am not possessed."
- French livre (Wikipedia) The louis at 24 livres, for the price of the painting.
- Denis Diderot (Wikipédia, in French) His daughter's marriage in 1772 to Abel Caroillon de Vandeul.
Page history: first published .