Economists -- Great Britain -- Biography; Smith, Adam, 1723-1790
Smith went more into society in the few months he resided in Paris
than at any other period of his life. He was a regular guest in almost
all the famous literary salons of that time--Baron d'Holbach's,
Helvetius', Madame de Geoffrin's, Comtesse de Boufflers', Mademoiselle
l'Espinasse's, and probably Madame Necker's. Our information about his
doings is of course meagre, but there is one week in July 1766 in
which we happen to have his name mentioned frequently in the course of
the correspondence between Hume and his Paris friends regarding the
quarrel with Rousseau, and during that week Smith was on the 21st at
Mademoiselle l'Espinasse's, on the 25th at Comtesse de Boufflers', and
on the 27th at Baron d'Holbach's, where he had some conversation with
Turgot. He was a constant visitor at Madame Riccoboni the novelist's.
He attended the meetings of the new economist sect in the apartments
of Dr. Quesnay, and though the economic dinners of the elder Mirabeau,
the "Friend of Men," were not begun for a year after, he no doubt
visited the Marquis, as we know he visited other members of the
fraternity. He went to Compiegne when the Court removed to Compiegne,
made frequent excursions to interesting places within reach, and is
always seen with troops of friends about him. Many of these were
Englishmen, for after their long exclusion from Paris during the Seven
Years war, Englishmen had begun to pour into the city, and the Hotel
du Parc Royal, where Smith lived, was generally full of English
guests. Among others who were there, as I have just mentioned, was
Horace Walpole, who remained on till Easter, and with whom Smith seems
to have become well acquainted, for in writing Hume in July he asks to
be specially remembered to Mr. Walpole.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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