<P> In 1742, he befriended Jean - Jacques Rousseau . In 1743, he further alienated his father by marrying Antoinette Champion (1710--1796), a devout Roman Catholic . The match was considered inappropriate due to Champion's low social standing, poor education, fatherless status, and lack of a dowry . She was about three years older than Diderot . The marriage, in October 1743, produced one surviving child, a girl . Her name was Angélique, named after both Diderot's dead mother and sister . The death of his sister, a nun, from overwork in the convent may have affected Diderot's opinion of religion . She is assumed to have been the inspiration for his novel about a nun, La Religieuse, in which he depicts a woman who is forced to enter a convent where she suffers at the hands of the other nuns in the community . </P> <P> Diderot had affairs with Mlle . Babuti (who would marry Greuze), Madeleine de Puisieux, Sophie Volland and Mme de Maux . His letters to Sophie Volland are known for their candor and are regarded to be "among the literary treasures of the eighteenth century". </P> <P> Though his work was broad as well as rigorous, it did not bring Diderot riches . He secured none of the posts that were occasionally given to needy men of letters; he could not even obtain the bare official recognition of merit which was implied by being chosen a member of the Académie française . When the time came for him to provide a dowry for his daughter, he saw no alternative than to sell his library . When Empress Catherine II of Russia heard of his financial troubles she commissioned an agent in Paris to buy the library . She then requested that the philosopher retain the books in Paris until she required them, and act as her librarian with a yearly salary . Between October 1773 and March 1774, the sick Diderot spent a few months at the empress's court in Saint Petersburg . </P> <P> Diderot died of pulmonary thrombosis in Paris on 31 July 1784, and was buried in the city's Église Saint - Roch . His heirs sent his vast library to Catherine II, who had it deposited at the National Library of Russia . He has several times been denied burial in the Panthéon with other French notables, but the French government did recently announce the possibility of memorializing him in this fashion, on the 300th anniversary of his birth (October 2013). This idea seems to have been shelved . </P>

What did denis diderot encyclopedia contribute to the literature of the enlightenment