ABSTRACT
In the century which fostered the legend of the Good Chinese, under the auspices of the Jesuit Order and its star student, Voltaire, Diderot is generally considered as a sinophobe. Derogatory remarks about the Chinese are scattered throughout his works, with a mounting degree of criticism after the expulsion of the Jesuits in the 1760s. The brand of enlightened despotism counselled by Confucius to the princes, with supreme authority exercised by love, and the state conceived as a large family, found a considerable audience in France. Chinese antiquity and religion were bound to come under Diderot's scrutiny in his articles on philosophy and religion for the Encyclopedie. His early orientation can best be described as a shift from deism to Spinozism, ending in atheism in the Lettre sur les aveugles, in 1749. If the Chinese nation is lauded for its hard work, Diderot answers: 'Nous n'en doutons pas.
