Early in life introduced into the salons of Paris, he readily caught their spirit, and soon obtained the friendship of the leading encyclopaedists and philosophers of scientific and historical fame; he was on intimate terms with many well known in letters and in the arts. The celebrated wits of both sexes, the beauties, the belles, courted his society; the charm of their brilliant conversation, their versatile accomplishments, and their winning manners were fascinating and irresistible. These divinities imagined they moved and had their being in a sublimated atmosphere far above and beyond the aspiration of common mortals; their sentiments breathed of perfect philanthropy, expressed in terms and in tenderness befitting persons divinely inspired. Every allurement that could inspire the imagination, every blandishment entrancing the senses, every grace, talent, every ornament which could enhance the form or ennoble the intellect, was cultivated and appreciated. Luxury in dress, in gems, in furniture, in equipage, in banquets, in music, in flowers, in painting, in frescoes, in sculpture, was displayed with excess of prodigality which vied with the purest taste. An ambrosial flavor of expression abounded in a common salutation; a delicate oriental perfume seemed to permeate every compliment, nor was any remark deemed appropriate unless it contained a compliment; eloquence was discarded because it was tinctured with too much external exhibition of feeling; it, moreover, took up too much precious time. {93} But a higher art was attained in its stead--the art of epigrammatical brevity, to communicate in a half-line what an oration could not teach in a half-hour; nor was an epigram deemed perfect when its wit was rare and its sense profound, unless it tended to a sneer at religion or goodness in mankind, or told a scandalous lie.