After the orthodoxy of Madame Geoffrin and the decency of Madame Necker, the gatherings of Baron d’Holbach at Grandval might have been supposed to have afforded Galiani an agreeable contrast. Not content with disbelieving himself, the Baron’s scepticism was of that eager and proselytising kind which must for ever be destroying the faith of others. He delivered himself of it with a daring irreverence that made even the Italian Abbé shudder, though, heaven knows! he talked freely enough himself, and had listened to free enough talk from others. He was here, as he had been at the Neckers’, almost alone in the Opposition. It delighted him to lean over the table and assure these persons who were for pushing throne and Church, King and priest, down the abyss as fast as might be, that _he_ loved despotism, ‘bien cru, bien vert, bien âpre.’ It was Galiani who alone perceived that these wild theories, conceived in _salons_, must, when translated into deeds, first of all destroy those who conceived them, and that a change in the Constitution, which might be a very beautiful thing when done, was a very vile thing in the doing. ‘It worries two or three generations,’ he said, ‘and only obliges posterity. Posterity is merely a possibility, and we are realities. And why should realities put themselves out for possibilities?’ One day at d’Holbach’s, the conversation on the Deity became so outrageous, that, with every man’s hand against him, Galiani rose. ‘_Messieurs les Philosophes_,’ says he, ‘you go too fast. If I were the Pope, I should hand you over to the Inquisition; if the King, to the Bastille. But as I have the good luck to be neither, I shall come to dinner next Thursday, and you shall listen to me as patiently as I have listened to you.’ Thursday came. After dinner and coffee, the Abbé takes an armchair, crosses his legs, removes his wig (the night being sultry), and, with those lively gesticulations which he can no more help than he can help breathing, tells a story. ‘Please suppose, gentlemen, that one of you, who is the most convinced that this world is the result of chance, happens to be playing at dice, not in a gambling hell but in one of the best houses in Paris. His adversary, casting one, two, three, four--many times--always throws number six. After the game has gone on a little while, my friend Diderot, we will say, who is losing his money, will certainly call out, “The dice are cogged! This is some swindlers’ den!” What, philosopher, what? Because ten or twelve throws of dice come out of the box so that you lose half a dozen francs, you are firmly convinced that this is the result of a clever design, an artificial combination, a complicated roguery; and yet, seeing in the universe a mighty number of combinations a thousand times more difficult, more complicated, and more useful, you do not suspect that Nature’s dice are also cogged, and that above there is a great Arranger?’