And there happened to be special causes for harshness towards the press at this moment.

Verses had been published satirising the king and his manner of life in bitter terms, and a stern raid was made upon all the scribblers in Paris.

At the court there had just taken place one of those reactions in favour of the ecclesiastical party, which for thirty years in the court history alternated so frequently with movements in the opposite direction.

The gossip of the town set down Diderot's imprisonment to a satire against the Jesuits, of which he was wrongly supposed to be the author.[81] It is not worth while to seek far for a reason, when authority was as able and as ready to thrust men into gaol for a bad reason as for a good one.
The writer or the printer of a philosophical treatise was at this moment looked upon in France much as a magistrate now looks on the wretch who vends infamous prints.
The lieutenant of police (Berryer) treated the miserable author with additional severity, for stubbornly refusing to give up the name of the printer.

Diderot was well aware that the printer would be sent to the galleys for life, if the lieutenant of police could once lay hands upon him.