In the Dialogues it is assumed that the play had been written by the hero himself, and the hero is the chief speaker.

Not a word is said from which the reader would guess that Diderot had borrowed the substance of his plot and some of its least insipid scenes from Goldoni.

We can hardly wonder that he was charged with plagiarism.

Yet it was not deliberate, we may be sure.

When Diderot was strongly seized by an idea, outer circumstances were as if they did not exist.