He had not only to write articles upon the most exhausting and various kinds of subjects; he had also to distribute topics among his writers, to shape their manuscripts, to correct proof-sheets, to supervise the preparation of the engravings, to write the text explanatory of them, and all this amid constant apprehension and alarm from the government and the police.

He would have been free from persecution at Lausanne or at Leyden.

The two great sovereigns of the north who thought it part of the trade of a king to patronise the new philosophy, offered him shelter at Petersburg or Berlin.[151] But how could he transport to the banks of the Neva or the Spree his fifty skilled compositors, his crafty engravers on copper-plate, and all the host of his industrial army?
How could he find in those half-barbarous lands the looms and engines and thousand cunning implements and marvellous processes which he had under his eye and ready to his hand in France?
And so he held fast to his post on the fifth floor of the house in the Rue Saint Benoit, a standing marvel to the world of letters for all time.
As his toil was drawing to a close, he suddenly received the most mortifying of all the blows that were struck at him in the course of his prolonged, hazardous, and tormenting adventure.

After the interruption in 1759, it was resolved to bring out the ten volumes which were still wanting, in a single issue.

Le Breton was entrusted with the business of printing them.