There is, indeed, a reverse side to Helvétius’ character as enlightened landowner. Carlyle, in his ‘Essay on Diderot,’ quotes Diderot’s ‘Voyage à Bourbonne,’ in which the ex-Farmer-General is portrayed as a cruelly strict preserver, living in the midst of peasants who broke his windows, plundered his garden, tore up his palings, and hated him so savagely that he dared not go out shooting save with an armed escort of four-and-twenty keepers. Diderot added that Helvétius had swept away a little village of huts which the poor people had built on the fringe of his preserves; that the good philosopher was a coward, and the unhappiest of men. But it must be remembered that Diderot did not speak from first-hand observation, but drew, and said he drew, all his information from a Madame de Nocé, a neighbour of Helvétius. Now happy, unsociable people like Helvétius and his wife are not likely to be popular in a limited country society, which would expect much from them, and get practically nothing. Saint-Lambert and Marmontel both speak of Helvétius’ liberality, generosity, and unostentatious benevolence. Morellet, who was his closest intimate for many years, adds like testimony, and especially mentions his mercy to poachers. One story illustrating it has been told. Another runs that Helvétius found a man poaching under the very windows of his house, and at first naturally inclined to wrath, curbed himself: ‘If you wanted game, why did you not ask me? I would have given it to you.’ Perhaps the truth of the whole matter lies in that anecdote. The keen sportsman and preserver did sometimes lose his temper and forget his compassion: his better self soon recalled it, and that rare disposition of humility and love for his fellows hastened to make amends. In 1755, the book to which he had devoted those long, laborious mornings at Voré (by which I must certainly achieve glory, if I am to achieve it at all!) was finished at last. It was to be called ‘De l’Esprit’--not to be translated ‘Wit,’ as Croker translated it, but something much more serious--‘On the Mind.’