He was himself not only the first critic of his day, but he was thinker as well as chronicler, worldling and scholar, reporter and _savant_. Foreigner though he was, he had learnt to write the French language in a style inimitably clear, supple, and forcible. His command of irony alone should have been a fortune to him. Add to this, his singularly wise, calm head, and his unrivalled position as the friend of the women of the _salons_ and the nobility of Paris as well as of its writers and politicians. Further, this critic of music was himself a musician, this judge of authors himself an author. He lived in one of the most momentous and thrilling periods in the history of this earth, and in one of the most stimulating of her cities, and was able to write wholly without fear of consequence for readers of whose intelligent interest he was sure, while he had ever before him the magnificent hope of so opening the hearts and feeding the knowledge of those readers that they might turn and do good unto their people and be a blessing, and not a curse, to their lands. Consider all this, and it is not marvellous that Grimm remains the first journalist and the ‘Literary Correspondence’ the first newspaper in the world. It is hardly necessary to say that it gave its editor an enormous amount of work. _Chaise de paille_, his friends called him in allusion to his diligence; later, when he began to travel, Grimm suggested the nickname should be altered to _chaise de poste_. He had many secretaries working under him. One, Meister, was attached to him all his life, and benefited largely under his will. When he was away from Paris the good-natured Diderot made a brilliant substitute; and Madame d’Épinay took up a delicate pen to become the first, and surely the most charming, of women journalists. Only a few months after his arrival in Paris Grimm had been introduced to this little black-eyed, bright-witted, and all too seductive wife of a worthless husband. In 1752, at Frisen’s table, he had heard her name insulted, and had fought a duel for its honour. By 1755, on his return from his journey with d’Holbach, he became a familiar figure in her _salon_. First her wise and masterful friend, he was soon her despotic lover.