In the years 1762-64-66 Sterne accepted the hospitality of the host, whom he called ‘the great protector of wits and the _sçavans_ who are no wits,’ to so large an extent that he could say the Baron’s house was as his own. To be sure, d’Holbach’s ‘joyous sett’ must have admirably suited this Parson Yorick, who had ‘no religion but in appearance,’ and a domestic morality very little better than the worst of the Baron’s French _convives_. The ‘broad, unmeaning face’ of Hume, the historian, was sometimes to be seen at d’Holbach’s table, where he found himself for the first time with thinkers not too narrow, but too emancipated, for his liking. It was the Baron who, speaking from experience, warned Hume against nourishing in his bosom a serpent like Rousseau, and from d’Holbach’s house, says Hume’s biographer, Burton, that the story of the famous quarrel between Hume and Rousseau spread all over France ‘in a moment.’ David Garrick came to Grandval, and delighted an age and a company passionately devoted to histrionic talent. A sprightly Madame Riccoboni used to write accounts of d’Holbach’s society to the actor when he had gone back to England; and whenever she saw the Baron looked bored or worried, made that expression a text on which to moralise on the worthlessness of riches. The Baron did not often appear anything but placid, however, and there are very few of his guests who even hint at anything in himself or his gatherings which was not smooth and delightful. Horace Walpole, indeed, talks of ‘dull d’Olbach’s.’ But then Horace was the intimate friend of Madame du Deffand, who loathed ‘les philosophes’ and all their ways and works, and on one occasion at least was so unlucky as to find himself at one of the Baron’s dinner parties, not only the solitary Englishman out of a party of twelve, but next to that tedious Raynal. ‘I dreaded opening my mouth in French before so many people and so many servants,’ says Horace; and to avoid being bored by the ‘Two Indies,’ he made signs to Raynal that he was deaf. After dinner, Raynal discovered the trick, and naturally was not pleased. John Wilkes, with his ugly face, his flaming past, and his irresistible charm, also sat at the Baron’s cosmopolitan board; as did Benjamin Franklin, Lord Shelburne, and Priestley--Non-conformist, chemist, and one of the founders of modern scientific criticism. Some of these people, of course, only dined, or were merely invited to spend a long day in the Grandval grounds and gardens; but many became part of the house party for days, like Galiani, for weeks, like Grimm, for months, like Diderot, or for ever, like Father Hoop.