Editing Denis Diderot (section)

===''The Indiscreet Jewels''===
{{main|The Indiscreet Jewels}}
In 1748, Diderot needed to raise money on short notice. His wife had borne him a child, and his mistress [[Madeleine de Puisieux]] was making financial demands of him. At this time, Diderot had told his mistress that writing a novel was a trivial task, whereupon she challenged him to write one. As a result, Diderot produced ''[[The Indiscreet Jewels]]'' (''Les bijoux indiscrets''). The book is about the magical ring of a Sultan that induces any woman's "discreet jewels"<ref name="Furbank 1992 44">{{cite book|title=Diderot: A Critical Biography|author=P.N. Furbank|publisher=Alfred A. Knopf|page=44|year=1992}}</ref><!--START OF NOTE-->{{refn|group=note|''Bijou'' is a slang word meaning the vagina.<ref name="Furbank 1992 44"/>  <!--END OF NOTE-->}} to confess their sexual experiences when the ring is pointed at them.<ref name=AoV />{{rp|626–627}} In all, the ring is pointed at thirty different women in the book—usually at a dinner or a social meeting—with the Sultan typically being visible to the woman.<ref name="RousseauPorter1990"/><ref name=AoV />{{rp|627}} However, since the ring has the additional property of making its owner invisible when required, a few of the sexual experiences recounted are through direct observation with the Sultan making himself invisible and placing his person in the unsuspecting woman's boudoir.<ref name="RousseauPorter1990">{{cite book|last=Rodin Pucci|first=Suzanne|editor1=George Sebastian Rousseau|editor-link1=George Rousseau|editor2=Roy Porter|editor-link2=Roy Porter|title=Exoticism in the Enlightenment|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TNNRAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA156|access-date=12 December 2016|year=1990|publisher=Manchester University Press|isbn=978-0719026775|page=156|chapter=The discreet charms of the exotic: fictions of the harem in eighteenth-century France}}</ref>

Besides the bawdiness, there are several digressions into philosophy, music, and literature in the book. In one such philosophical digression, the Sultan has a dream in which he sees a child named "Experiment" growing bigger and stronger till the child demolishes an ancient temple named "Hypothesis". The book proved to be lucrative for Diderot even though it could only be sold clandestinely. It is Diderot's most published work.<ref name=AoV />{{rp|627}}

The book is believed to draw upon the 1742 [[libertine novel]] [[The Sofa: A Moral Tale|''Le Sopha'']] by [[Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon]] (Crébillon fils).<ref name=AoV />{{rp|627}}