guests were the philosophes and encyclopedists and men of
letters--Diderot, Marmontel, Raynal, Galiani. The conversation ran
largely towards metaphysics and theology, and, as Morellet, who was
often there, states, the boldest theories were propounded, and things
spoken which might well call down fire from heaven. It was there that
Hume observed he had neither seen an atheist, nor did he believe one
existed, and was informed by his host in reply, "You have been a
little unfortunate; you are here at table with seventeen for the first
time."

Morellet mentions that it was at the table of Helvetius, the
philosopher, he himself first met Smith. Helvetius was a retired
farmer-general of the taxes, who had grown rich without practising
extortion, and instead of remaining a bachelor, as Smith says other
farmers-general in France did, because no gentlewoman would marry
them, and they were too proud to marry anybody else, he had married a
pretty and clever wife, an early friend of Turgot's, who helped to
make his Tuesday dinners among the most agreeable entertainments in
Paris. He had recently returned from a long sojourn in England, so
enchanted with both country and people that d'Holbach, who could find
nothing to praise in either, declared he could really have seen
nothing in England all the time except the persecution for heresy
which he had shortly before suffered in France, and would have escaped
in our freer air; and he was always very hospitable to English
celebrities, so that it may be inferred that Smith enjoyed many
opportunities of conversation with this versatile and philosophical
financier during his stay in Paris.

Morellet, whose acquaintance Smith made at Helvetius' house, became
one of his fastest friends in France, and on leaving Paris Smith gave
him for a keepsake his own pocket-book,--a very pretty English-made
pocket-book, says the Abbe, which "has served me these twenty years."
Morellet, besides being an advanced economist, whose views ran in
sympathy with Smith's own, was the most delightful of companions,
uniting with strong sense and a deep love of the right an unfailing
play of irony and fun, and ever ready, as Fanny Burney found him still
at eighty-five, to sing his own songs for the entertainment of his
friends. The Abbe was a metaphysician as well as an economist, but,
according to his account of his conversations with Smith, they seem to
have discussed mainly economic subjects--"the theory of co