Abstract: Prosper Marchand and Jean-Frédéric Bernard were not always good friends. This article recounts an early episode of conflict in their relationship, occasioned by the publication of Cymbalum mundi, which was thought by many to have vanished, but which reappeared as if by a miracle at the beginning of the eighteenth century. In 1711, a rivalry sprang up between them regarding the publication of the text, but it is likely that a common friend, the engraver, Bernard Picard, “smoothed the rough edges”.
