been the case in Paris; but the story would not be believed in any
less immaculate region on the face of the earth. The plain truth seems
to be, that the general looseness of Parisian society saw nothing gross
in the grossest connexion. Even where they affected virtue, they
palpably preferred their having an evening lounge open to them, to any
consideration grounded on common propriety and a sense of shame.

But the philosopher was a dirty fellow after all, and it only does
credit to his noble biographer's sense of propriety to admit, that "his
conduct must seem strange to all men of right and honourable feelings."
In fact, the philosopher seems to have lent his aid very zealously to a
correspondence carried on by his sensitive fellow-lodger! with a view to
a marriage with a Spanish Marquis Mora. Among other proofs, he went
every morning to the post-office to receive the Spaniard's letters for
the lady. "I confess," says Lord Brougham, "I am driven, how reluctantly
soever, to the painful conclusion, that he lent himself to the plan of
her _inveigling_ the Spaniard into a marriage." And this was not the
only instance of his by-play. Mademoiselle professed also to have fallen
in love with a M. Guibert, known as a military writer. Guibert exhibited
his best tactics, in keeping clear of the lady. "All this time, she
continued," says his lordship, "to make D'Alembert believe, that she had
no real passion for any one but himself." No one can easily suppose that
they were not connected in a plan of obtaining for her a settlement in
life by marriage. But, if this marriage-intrigue was in every sense, and
on all sides, contemptible; what are we to think of the nature of the
connexion existing between this sensitive lady and D'Alembert, living
for years under the same roof? The whole matter would be too repulsive
for the decorums of biography, if it were not among the evidences of
that utter corruption of morals, and callousness of feeling, which were
finally avenged in the havoc of the Revolution.

D'Alembert's income had been increased by his appointment to the office
of secretary to the Academy, in 1772. Unfortunately for his literary
fame, it became a part of his duty to write the _eloges_ of the deceased
members, an office which he fulfilled with equal diligence and
unproductiveness; for, of those unfortunate performances he wrote no
less than eighty-three. But the French are fond of fooleries of this
kind; a few sounding s