One must picture him at this time as a tall, broad-shouldered, rather handsome man, with that old boyish constraint in his manner, and that strict high-mindedness which his own generation could not be expected to find attractive. Add to these qualities that he was not in the least carried away by dreams and visions, as were nearly all his friends, that even then he saw the world as it was, and meant to do with it what he could--that, though in lofty aim he may have been an idealist, he never fell into the idealist’s fault of believing that, because there is everything to do, he must do everything, or nothing. Just, reasonable, practical--what a wholesome contrast to your visionary Rousseaus, ay, and to your impulsive Voltaires! He was not a brilliant person, this; it is said that he was slow in everything he undertook. Nor had he given over the vigour of his youth and the strength of his understanding to any one party. He was studying them all. He was about three or four and twenty when he first began to go into the intellectual society of Paris--when Montesquieu, d’Alembert, Galiani, Helvétius, found the stiffness of manner more than redeemed by the wealth of the mind. Presently he was introduced to Madame de Graffigny, and complimented her by writing a long review of her ‘Letters from a Peruvian,’ which, as giving his own views on education, on marriage, and on the fashionable avoidance of parenthood, retains all its interest. It is strange to hear a pre-Revolutionary Frenchman urging love-marriages--‘Because we are sometimes deceived, it is concluded we ought never to choose’--and strange also that, out of all the great reformers with whom his name is associated, Turgot alone perceived the fearful havoc which neglect of family duties makes in the well-being of the State. He was presented to Madame de Graffigny by her niece, Mademoiselle de Ligniville. The bright and charming Minette naturally did not find it at all difficult to draw Anne Robert of five-and-twenty from the intellectual society of her aunt’s _salon_ to a game of battledore and shuttlecock _à deux_. Morellet, watching the pair, professed himself pained and astonished that their friendship did not end as nearly all such friendships do and should. Most of Turgot’s biographers have sought the reason why Mademoiselle de Ligniville became Madame Helvétius and not Madame Turgot--and have not found it. As for Turgot, he said nothing. It remains idle to speculate whether he conceived for her a passion, which his _gaucherie_ and shyness, perhaps, prevented her from returning; or whether he had already devoted his life to his public duty, and thought that private happiness would be deterrent and not spur to his work for the race. An unhappy or an unrequited affection is one of the finest incentives to labour and success one can have. It may be that Turgot had it. The only certain facts are that Minette married Helvétius, and that Turgot remained her life-long friend.