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Mme. de Graffigny Baron d'Holbach Mme. d'Epinay's Portrait of Herself Mlle. Quinault Rousseau La Chevrette Grimm Diderot The Abbe Galiani Estimate of Mme. d'Epinay A few of the more radical and earnest of the philosophers rarely, if ever, appeared at the table of Mme. Geoffrin. They would have brought too much heat to this company, which discussed everything in a light and agreeable fashion.
After the abbe had delivered a brief discourse on the nature of secret missions and the discretion necessary to those charged with them, he told me that he would let me know when anything suitable for me presented itself. I made the acquaintance of the Abbe Galiani, the secretary of the Neapolitan Embassy.
At the house of Sir William Hamilton, then the centre of the most polished society in Naples, he met not only artists and archeologists, but men of letters and of affairs. Among these, he was peculiarly drawn to the two distinguished economists, the abate Galiani and the cavaliere Filangieri, in whose company he enjoyed for the first time sound learning unhampered by pedantry.
A more permanent interest is attached to the famous dinners of Baron d'Holbach, where twice a week men like Diderot, Helvetius, Grimm, Marmontel, Duclos, the Abbe Galiani and for a time Buffon and Rousseau, met in an informal way to enjoy the good cheer and good wines of this "maitre d'hotel of philosophy," and discuss the affairs of the universe.
One of the subtlest means of deceiving, at least as long as possible, and of successfully representing oneself to be stupider than one really is which in everyday life is often as desirable as an umbrella, is called ENTHUSIASM, including what belongs to it, for instance, virtue. For as Galiani said, who was obliged to know it: VERTU EST ENTHOUSIASME.
There are even cases where enchantment mixes with the disgust namely, where by a freak of nature, genius is bound to some such indiscreet billy-goat and ape, as in the case of the Abbe Galiani, the profoundest, acutest, and perhaps also filthiest man of his century he was far profounder than Voltaire, and consequently also, a good deal more silent.
In the evening, I had the pleasure of seeing that my bed had been prepared in the young man's chamber. Doctor Gennaro's family was composed of this son and of a daughter unfortunately very plain, of his wife and of two elderly, devout sisters. Amongst the guests at the supper-table I met several literary men, and the Marquis Galiani, who was at that time annotating Vitruvius.
From on high, like a clap of thunder!" All his expressions are bright flashes one after another. Nobody, since Voltaire and Galiani, has launched forth such a profusion of them; on society, laws, government, France and the French, some penetrate and explain, like those of Montesquieu, as if with a flash of lightening.
One gift he most certainly possessed: he was vastly amusing and entertaining, and resembled in one respect the Abbé Galiani, as described by Diderot; for he was indeed "a treasure on rainy days, and if the cabinet-makers made such things, everybody would have one in the country."
Rousseau, Diderot, Helvétius, Duclos, Suard, the Abbés Galiani, Raynal, the Florentine physician Gatti, Comte de Schomberg, Chevalier de Chastellux, Saint-Lambert, Marquis de Croixmare, the different ambassadors, counts and princes, were frequent visitors In this brilliant circle her letters from Voltaire, read aloud, were always eagerly awaited.
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