Then there was an _ami de la maison_, a household fixture, a chimney-corner _habitué_--a Scotchman named Hope, and nicknamed Père Hoop--a shrivelled, withered, pessimistic person, who suffered, or said he suffered, from ‘life-weariness’ and bad health, who was an excellent foil to what Sterne called the ‘joyous sett’ in which he found himself, and the perpetual and dismally good-natured butt of Madame d’Aine’s rippling jokes. The Baron had all the virtues of the host. He was not only rich and generous--with that cook and cellar beyond reproach. In those days to be a perfect entertainer something more even than this was required. An agreeable talker, and a still more agreeable listener, really learned, but with the most pleasing human weakness for a little scandal, as easy-going as his mother-in-law and his wife, entirely simple in manner, with no faintest touch of pretension or affectation, a _bon vivant_ in the pleasantest and most harmless sense of the phrase--who would not delight to have been among his guests? There were generally three or four of them staying in the house, and sometimes very many more. Diderot was here often for weeks together, and sometimes for months. He had a special bedroom always reserved for him. In d’Holbach’s most intimate confidence, his abundance, fecundity, and inspiration were in piquant contrast to the Baron’s calm learning and well-regulated sense. Here too came, but not very often, Diderot’s partner in the Encyclopædia, d’Alembert. Too shy and retiring to enjoy Grandval’s freedom and liveliness as a recreation, d’Alembert’s work for his party was not to be advanced, as his brethren certainly advanced their work, by speculative talk in clever company--but always in solitude, in silence, and in simplicity. Turgot, like d’Alembert, was from time to time a guest, but a rare one. Turgot was beginning to Do, what most of his friends were still discussing How to do. Little Galiani skipped down very often from the Italian Embassy, and the Paris he worshipped, to amuse the Baron’s house-party by telling it those stories, ‘like dramas,’ which no one ever found too long. ‘That man is a pantomime from his head to his feet,’ said admiring Diderot, watching him. After 1761, the heavy Abbé Morellet, the would-be refuter of Galiani’s wit on the Corn Laws, was constantly at the Baron’s ‘developing my theories on public economy’ to his own great satisfaction. His audience have not left _their_ feelings on record. Grimm, Diderot’s dear Damon, was here very often, with that slightly nauseous affection for his Pythias, which, said the frankly vain Denis, made d’Holbach jealous. For jealous, one may be allowed to read ‘disgusted.’