The men of letters here are really very agreeable: all of them men of the world, living in entire, or almost entire harmony among themselves, and quite irreproachable in their morals. It would give you, and Jardine, and Robertson, great satisfaction to find that there is not a single deist among them. Those whose persons and conversation I like best, are D'Alembert, Buffon, Marmontel, Diderot, Duclos, Helvetius, and old President Henault, who, though now decaying, retains that amiable character which made him once the delight of all France. He had always the best cook and the best company in Paris. But though I know you will laugh at me, as they do, I must confess that I am more carried away from their society than I should be, by the great ladies, with whom I became acquainted at my first introduction to court, and whom my connexions with the English ambassador will not allow me entirely to drop. Nothing can be more easy and agreeable than my situation with Lord Hertford, who is a man of strict honour, an amiable temper, a good understanding, and an elegant person and behaviour. He takes very much in this place. He has got an opinion very well founded, that the more acquaintance I make, and the greater intimacies I form with the French, the more I am enabled to be of service to him: so he exacts no attendance from me; and is well pleased to find me carried into all kinds of company. He tells me, that if he did not meet me by chance in third places, we should go out of acquaintance. Thus you see my present plan of life sketched out; but it is unsuitable to my age and temper; and I am determined to retrench and to abandon the fine folks, before they abandon me.[181:1] During his absence, Hume's house was let to Blair. In this letter he gives pretty minute instructions as to the most advantageous distribution of the occupation of the apartments, which incidentally illustrate his own domestic habits. Thus-- Never put a fire in the south room with the red paper. It is so warm of itself, that all last winter, which was a very severe one, I lay with a single blanket; and frequently upon coming in at midnight, starving with cold, have sat down and read for an hour, as if I had had a stove in the room.