A less full-blooded and generous person than Diderot would have resented the stoutness of the old man's persistency.

Diderot on the contrary felt and delighted to feel, that this conflict of wills was a mere accident which left undisturbed the reality of old love.

"The first few years of my life in Paris," he once told an acquaintance, "had been rather irregular; my behaviour was enough to irritate my father, without there being any need to make it worse by exaggeration.

Still calumny was not wanting.

People told him--well what did they not tell him?
An opportunity for going to see him presented itself.