For ten months Smith suffered and enjoyed enough dissipation for a lifetime, if we may judge from the Hume correspondence, which shows that in one week of July 1766 he was at Baron Holbach’s conversing with Turgot, at the Comtesse de Boufflers’, and in the salon of Mademoiselle de l’Espinasse. In fact, as Mr. Rae says, he seems to have been a regular guest in almost all the famous _salons_ of Paris. Thus we find Hume writing in March to the Countess de Boufflers: “I am glad you have taken my friend Smith under your protection. You will find him a man of true merit, though perhaps his sedentary recluse life may have hurt his air and appearance as a man of the world.” She replies in May that she has made the acquaintance of Mr. Smith, and for love of Hume has given him a very hearty welcome; that she is reading the _Theory of Moral Sentiments_, and believes it will please her. Six years later she talked of translating the book, and said that Smith’s doctrine of Sympathy was supplanting Hume’s philosophy as the fashionable opinion, especially with the ladies! Smith was a keen playgoer in Paris, and made the acquaintance of Madame Riccoboni, who had been a great actress but had abandoned the stage for the novel, and was almost as popular as Richardson. When he left France she gave him a charming letter of introduction to Garrick:— “Je suis bien vaine, my dear Mr. Garrick, de pouvoir vous donner ce que je perds avec un regret très vif, le plaisir de voir Mr. Smith. Ce charming philosopher vous dira combien il a d’esprit, car je le défie de parler sans en montrer.... Oh ces Écossois! ces chiens d’Écossois! ils viennent me plaire et m’affliger. Je suis comme ces folles jeunes filles qui écoutent un amant sans penser au regret, toujours voisin du plaisir. Grondez-moi, battez-moi, tuez-moi: mais j’aime Mr. Smith, je l’aime beaucoup. Je voudrois que le diable emportât tous nos gens de lettres, tous nos philosophes, et qu’il me rapportât Mr. Smith.”