Millar, writing on 5th June, gives the following account of his conduct as to the suppressed dissertations.

The interest taken by Hume, as by all his contemporary fellow-countrymen, in the Douglas cause, has already been noticed. As the inquiry which had taken place in France had not been long concluded, and was the object of discussion in the Court of Session, the adherents of the exiled royal house, and other Scottish families residing in Paris, naturally took such a deep interest in the proceedings, as the following letter explains.

The correspondence with Madame de Boufflers was occasionally resumed, when Hume or she was absent from Paris. How well the philosopher could upon occasion accommodate himself to the taste of a French lady of the court, the following may suffice to show.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER XIV.

There were many things to make the social position he obtained in France infinitely gratifying to Hume. Even his good birth was no claim to admission on a position of liberal familiarity with the higher aristocracy of England. His descent from a line of Scottish lairds would be insufficient in the eyes of the Walpoles, Russels, and Seymours, to distinguish him from the common herd of men who could put on a laced waistcoat and powdered wig, and command decent treatment from the lackeys in their ante-chambers. His claims rested on his Literary rank; and the extent to which such claims might be admitted was fixed by Hereditary rank at its own discretion. It might cordially receive them one day, and repel them with cold disdain on another. In this doubtful and partial recognition, Hume would find himself in the motley crowd of those who force themselves, or are partly welcomed, into these high places—dissipated men of genius, underbred men of riches, hardworking, pertinacious politicians; persons with whom his finely trained mind, his reserve, and his habit of mixing in a refined though small society of Scotsmen, would not easily harmonize.

In France matters were widely different; there he was at once warmly and affectionately received into the bosom of a society to which many of the supercilious English aristocracy would have sought for admission in vain. In England no distinct palpable barrier surrounded the distinguished group. The multitude clamorously asserted an equality. In default of other qualities, impudence and perseverance were sometimes sufficient to force admission. In these circumstances, each member of the privileged classes guarded his own portion of the arena as well as he might, and the intruder had to fight battle after battle, and contest every inch of ground he gained.

It seems as if in France the very rigidness with which the select circle was fortified was the reason why those admitted within it were placed so thoroughly at their ease. The aristocracy could open the door, look about them, and invite an individual to enter, without fearing to encounter a general rush for admission. There was much evil of every kind in that circle; we have not to deal here with its inward morality, but its outward form, and it certainly deserves to be remembered as one of the most memorable instances in which, on any large scale, the aristocracy of rank and wealth has met the aristocracy of letters without restraint. The quality of shining in conversation was not to be despised by the greatest in wealth, or the highest in the peerage; and their efforts were measured with those of the first wits of the time. To an aristocracy which could thus amuse itself, it was a great luxury to be surrounded by men of thought and learning. The courtier who could open his salon to the wits and philosophers of Paris, was far more dependant on their presence than they were on the privilege of admission. If a Barthélemi, a Marmontel, a Condillac, saw cause to desert the suppers of D'Holbach, they would be received at those of the Duc de Praslin or de Choiseul, the Prince of Conti, and Madame du Deffand; but how were such departed stars to be replaced?[209:1]

There is perhaps no more striking type of the character and condition of the Parisian coteries than one of Hume's most intimate friends, Madame Geoffrin. In this country, were an uneducated woman to frame and lead a social party, including the first in rank and in talent of the day, to which no one under royalty was too great not to deem admission a privilege; were she to be absolute in her admissions and exclusions, bold in her sarcasms, free and blunt often to rudeness in her observations and opinions, and severe or kind to all by turns as her own choice or caprice suggested, it would be at once pronounced that the reddest blood and the highest rank could alone produce such an anomaly. A very small number of eminent duchesses have perhaps occupied such a position in this country. Yet Madame Geoffrin, who acted this part to the full among the fastidious aristocracy of France before the revolution, was the daughter of a valet-de-chambre and the widow of a glass manufacturer. The foundation of her influence was her success in making herself the centre of a circle of artists and men of letters. She was much in the confidence of Madame De Tencin, and on that lady's death succeeded in transferring to herself what remained of her distinguished society, dimmed as it was by the departure of Montesquieu and Fontenelle. Madame Geoffrin by activity and energy widened the circle. She never made visits herself, and those who had the privilege of entering her dining-room on her public days, found there assembled D'Alembert, Helvétius, Raynal, Marmontel, Caraccioli, Holbach, Galliani, and the artist Vanloo. During the British embassy, David Hume, the great philosopher from the far North, might there be met; and when all other attempts had perhaps failed, some chance of encountering such an erratic meteor as Rousseau still remained in attending Madame Geoffrin's Wednesday dinner. Having once, by her signal wit and wisdom, gained her position, no obtrusive rivals from her own deserted class could push near enough to drive her from it. It is not the least admirable feature of this remarkable woman, that far from assuming the subdued and cautious tone of one of her own rank, who must be more wary than a denizen of committing breaches of the social rules of her new cast, a simplicity and freedom seems to have accompanied all her actions and ideas; a courageous adoption of what seemed good to her in place of what might be fit. Her letters, in their severe diction, give some notion of the writer's character, but cannot convey so full an impression as when they are presented in the bold, irregular, and most "unlady-like" hand in which they are scribbled.[211:1]

The pleasant retailers of the literary chit-chat of that time, Marmontel, Grimm, Bauchemont, and others, are full of details of Madame Geoffrin, who, if she was not quite as formally approached as Boufflers, or Deffand, was as much respected, loved, and feared. The author of the Contes Moraux," tells us some of the weaknesses of this gifted lady; and, according to his account, she had been actually convicted, living as she was outwardly in the freest society in the world, of a turn for secret devotion! "Elle avait un apartement dans un couvent de religieuses et une tribune à l'Eglise des Capucins,—mais avec autant de mystère que les femmes galantes de ce temps-là avaient des petites maisons." The picture would be sufficiently ludicrous, were it not for the darker features presented by a state of society, where no one should venture to be pious except under pain of being exterminated with ridicule.

There was one matter as to which Madame Geoffrin was timid and cautious; she never meddled with matters of state or unsafe political opinions, and was induced to discountenance those who did so. Surrounded by restless and inquiring spirits, she often dreaded being compromised by their conduct; and was especially uneasy at any time when the Bastille sheltered a more than usual number of those whose wit was wont to flash round her board. But her guests have recorded, that if there was a little saddened and earnest gravity in her deportment, when she received them after such naughty affairs, she abated nothing of her old kindness. Her good heart indeed was after all her noblest quality. She was one of those who held the simple notion, that were it not for the judicious distribution of favours by the rich, the poor, including artisans and producers of all kinds, must necessarily die of starvation. She was thus in the midst of an extensive distribution of charities, actively occupied in the encouragement of those who lived by the sweat of their brow; and if she believed that she accomplished much more than she actually did, it was a satisfaction not to be grudged to one who occupied herself with the fortunes of the poor, in the midst of the stony indifference of the French aristocracy of that day.

Another lady, a friend and correspondent of Hume, Madame le Page du Boccage, endeavoured to rival Madame Geoffrin as a centre of attraction; but though she possessed, along with wealth, both rank and beauty, she was unsuccessful, on account of the presence of a third quality—authorship. The wits must praise her bad poetry if they frequented her house, and where so many other doors were open without such a condition, they abandoned it. "Elle était d'une figure aimable," says Grimm, "elle est bonne femme; elle est riche; elle pouvait fixer chez elle les gens d'esprit et de bonne compagnie, sans les mettre dans l'embarras de lui parler avec peu de sincérité de sa Colombiade ou de ses Amazones."[213:1]

Perhaps of all these eminent women, while Madame de Boufflers had the greatest amount of elegance and accomplishment, Madame du Deffand had the sharpest and most searching wit. She was the author of that proverbial bon mot about St. Denis carrying his head under his arm, il n'y a que le premier pas qui coûte; a saying sufficient to make a reputation in France. Madame du Deffand does not appear to have been a correspondent of Hume, nor, though they occasionally met, does much cordiality seem to have subsisted between them.[214:1] The aveugle clairvoyante, as Voltaire aptly called her, in allusion to her blindness and her wit, thought that she discovered in Hume a worshipper at another shrine. She wrote to Walpole expressing her disgust of those who paid court to Madame de Boufflers, at the same time, only just not stating, in express terms, how much they were mistaken in not transferring their obsequiousness to herself.[214:2] She, certainly an object of pity from her blindness, was still more so in her own discontented spirit. The days which tranquil ease and the attentions of kind friends might have soothed, were disturbed by restless vanity, an intense desire to interfere with the doings of that world which she could not see, dissipation, and literary wrangles.

One remarkable person, an offshoot of Madame du Deffand's circle, and driven forth from it to raise an empire of her own, was Mademoiselle de L'Espinasse. Hume and she met frequently in Paris, and they subsequently corresponded together. She was an illegitimate child, who, having been well educated, had been adopted by Madame du Deffand as her companion, and the minister for supplying, as far as possible, her lost sense of sight. Mademoiselle had to be present at those displays of intellect which illuminated the table of her mistress. It soon began to transpire that the humble drudge possessed a soul of fire; and taking part in the conversation, her remarks rose as she acquired confidence and ease, into an originality of thought, fulness of judgment, and rich eloquence of language, which fascinated the senses of those veteran champions in the arena of intellect. Thus many of those who went to offer their incense to a woman old and blind, were constrained to bestow some of it on one "young in years, but in sage counsel old," who had little more outward claim on their admiration; for Mademoiselle de L'Espinasse was naturally plain, and was deeply marked with smallpox. The patroness did not present herself till six o'clock in the evening; to her who knew no difference between light and darkness it was morning. She often found that her protégée had been entertaining the guests for an hour, and that they had come early to enjoy her conversation. This was treason—an overt tampering with the allegiance of the followers; and the subordinate was driven forth with contumely.

It is not easy to decide which party, if either, was in the right; though the memoir writers in general take the part of Mademoiselle de L'Espinasse. Far from being made a homeless wanderer by the dismissal, she was immediately supplied with a house and furniture by her friends, who obtained for her a pension from the crown. On these means she founded a rival establishment of her own; and surrounded herself with an intellectual circle, which seems to have more than rivalled in brilliancy that from which she was dismissed. D'Alembert was told that if he countenanced the new idol, he must bid farewell to his former patroness. He at once joined the party of the young aspirant. He became dangerously ill, and Mademoiselle de L'Espinasse nursed him with the untiring affection of a wife or a daughter. The philosopher, whose humble dwelling was found to be on too sordid a scale to be consistent with health, thenceforth took up his abode with his young friend. Hume must have witnessed the rise of this new connexion, for it was during his residence in Paris that D'Alembert's illness took place, and it is the object of occasional anxious allusion by his Parisian acquaintance.[216:1]

Though the circumstances in which he passed his earlier days were not likely to nourish such a taste, no man seems to have been more dependant on the presence of an educated and intellectual female than the secretary of the Academy. There is little doubt that the new attachment was of a Platonic character; but it boded evil to both parties. The lady, if she had some portion of the purer affections of the soul to bestow upon the sage, had warmer feelings for likelier objects; and her frame sunk before the consuming fires of more than one passion.[218:1] She was carried to an early grave, and the mortifications, caused by her alienation, followed by grief for her death, broke the spirit, and imbittered and enfeebled the latter days of the philosopher. Hume seems to have established a closer friendship with D'Alembert than with any of his other contemporaries in France; and he left a memorial of his regard for the encyclopediast in his will. Unlike, in many respects, they had some features in common. D'Alembert's personal character, and the habits of his life, had, like his philosophy, the dignity of simplicity. His figure, and still more his voice, were the objects of much malicious sarcasm; but cruel jests could not make his fragile body less the tenement of a noble spirit; or his shrill puny voice less the instrument of great and bold thoughts. His mind stands forth in strong relief from the frippery of that age; while his writings contain no marks of that reckless infidelity which distinguishes the productions of his fellow labourers. In some of those follies, so prevalent that a man utterly free of them, must have courted the charge of eccentricity, if not of insanity, he partook; but moderately and reluctantly, as one suited for a better time and a nobler sphere of exertion. In the quarrel with Rousseau, he adopted the cause of Hume with honest zeal. He wrote many letters to Hume, which are still preserved. They perhaps, in some measure, exhibit the least amiable feature of his character—his bitterness, it might be almost termed hatred, towards Madame du Deffand, on account of her conduct to his own friend.

It is unnecessary to discourse, at any length, on the distinguished men—including the names of Buffon, Malesherbes, Diderot, Crébillon, Morellet, Helvétius, Holbach, Hénault, Raynal, Suard, La Condamine, and De Brosses, who courted Hume's company in France. Next to D'Alembert, his closest friendship seems to have been with the honest and thoughtful statesman, Turgot; who, in the midst of that reckless whirl of vanity, was already looking far into the future, and predicting, from the disorganized and menacing condition of the elements of French society, the storm that was to come. He wrote many letters to Hume, containing remarks on matters of statesmanship and political economy, which are of great interest in a historical and economical view, especially in one instance, where he notices the want of any common principle of sympathies and interests connecting the aristocracy with the people, and reflects on the dangerous consequences of such a state of matters to the peace of Europe.

There are many circumstances showing that much as he loved the social ease, combined with learning and wit, for which his Parisian circle was conspicuous, he disliked one prominent feature of that social system—the scornful infidelity, the almost intolerance of any thing like earnest belief, so often exhibited, both in speech and conduct. Sir Samuel Romilly has preserved the following curious statement by Diderot:—"He spoke of his acquaintance with Hume. 'Je vous dirai un trait de lui, mais il vous sera un peu scandaleux peut-être, car vous Anglais vous croyez un peu en Dieu; pour nous autres nous n'y croyons guères. Hume dîna avec une grande compagnie chez le Baron D'Holbach. Il était assis à côté du Baron; on parla de la religion naturelle: 'Pour les Athées,' disait Hume, 'je ne crois pas qu'il en existe; je n'en ai jamais vu.' 'Vous avez été un peu malheureux,' répondit l'autre, 'vous voici à table avec dix-sept pour la première fois.'"[220:1]

The secretary's residence in the metropolis was occasionally varied by official sojourns to Fontainbleau, or Compiègne, a visit to the Duchesse de Barbantane at Villers Cotterets, or an excursion with Madame de Boufflers and the Prince of Conti to L'Ile-Adam. That rural seat of princely magnificence and hospitality is a familiar name in the memoirs of the times; and particularly in those of Madame de Genlis. It is singular, indeed, that this lady never mentions Hume, though she appears to have been living in the castle at the time when he visited it. The Prince of Conti was in every way possessed of the external qualifications which, in the eyes of his countrymen, were then the proper ornaments of his high station. He was brave, a distinguished military leader, generous, extravagant, gallant, and a lover of literature and the arts.[221:1] There was probably little in such a character to rival a Turgot, or a D'Alembert in Hume's esteem; but his intercourse with this prince, as with De Rohan, De Choiseul, and others, would be of a more limited and formal character.[221:2] His influence with courtiers and statesmen, however, appears to have been considerable. In the letters addressed to him there are several instances where French people solicit his interposition with the great: thus, Madame Helvétius desires his good offices to procure an abbaye for her friend and neighbour the Abbé "Macdonalt," of an illustrious Irish family.[222:1] One lady, seeking ecclesiastical patronage, tells him that the clergy will have more pleasure in doing him a favour than in performing the functions of their office!

Hume has thus recorded in his "own life" the impression left on him by his reception in Paris:—"Those who have not seen the strange effects of modes, will never imagine the reception I met with at Paris, from men and women of all ranks and stations. The more I resiled from their excessive civilities, the more I was loaded with them. There is, however, a real satisfaction in living at Paris; from the great number of sensible, knowing, and polite company with which that city abounds above all places in the universe. I thought once of settling there for life." If he thought that he could have taken up his residence in Paris, and preserved for the remainder of his days the fresh bloom of his reputation, he was undoubtedly mistaken; but, dazzled as he in some measure was, we can see in his correspondence that he estimated the sensation he made pretty nearly at its just value. In the circle of toys, seized and discarded, by a giddy fashionable crowd, philosophy will have its turn, as well as poodles, parrots, tulips, monkeys, cafés, and black pages. It had been so a century earlier, when the most abstruse works of Des Cartes had been the ornament of every fashionable lady's toilette; and now the wheel had revolved and philosophy was again in vogue.

A second time we have Lord Charlemont affording us a passing sketch of Hume. Having had an opportunity of witnessing the philosopher's reception in France, he says:—