Author’s note: below is Part 2 of my series of blog posts on Adam Smith’s second visit to Paris; footnotes are below the fold. (I discussed his first visit to Paris last week.)

Voltaire had heard of him, David Hume was his intimate, students had travelled all the way from Russia to hear his labored but enthusiastic [lectures]. (Heilbroner 1999, p. 42)

When Adam Smith installed himself in Paris in 1766, he was already one of the foremost philosophers of his age. In summary, his reputation in Parisian intellectual circles and in the wider République des lettres of the European Enlightenment was a function of two variables. One is the reception in France of Smith’s first magnum opus, The Theory of Moral Sentiments; the other is his close connection with David Hume, who had already befriended many of the leading philosophes and salonnières of the French capital and spoken highly of Smith during his (Hume’s) celebrated residency in Paris from October 1763 to January 1766. Much has already been written of Hume’s Parisian sojourn and of his friendship with Smith (Mossner 1980; Rasmussen 2017), so I will focus instead on the early reception of The Theory of Moral Sentiments in France.

First off, soon after the publication of Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments in 1759, the first French-language publication to take notice of Smith’s new treatise was a subscription periodical, the Journal encyclopédique, which published a prominent and favorable review of the first edition of The Theory of Moral Sentiments as early as October 1759.[i] This review appears on pages 3-18 of the 15 October 1759 edition of the Journal encyclopédique. This issue of the journal consists of 168 pages in all, and “The Theory of Moral Sentiments, by Adam Smith Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow” is the first work to be reviewed there.)

The next chapter in the French reception of Smith’s first magnum opus was the publication, a few years later, of an anonymous French translation of either the first or second edition of The Theory of Moral Sentiments.[ii] This first translation of Smith’s work into French, the lingua franca of Europe at the time,[iii] appeared either in 1763 or 1764 and was titled Métaphysique de l’âme.[iv] There is some controversy, however, as to the identity of Smith’s translator. A contemporary source identifies the translator as one “Eidous”,[v] who was most likely Marc-Antoine Eidous (c.1724-c.1790), a prolific Encyclopédiste — he contributed 450 articles to the first five volumes of Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie — as well as a tireless translator.[vi] (See also Alcouffe & Massot-Bordenave 2020, pp. 26-27.) Another contemporary source (none other than David Hume) identifies “Mr Fitzmaurice”[vii] as the translator.

In a letter dated 28 October 1763, Hume informs Smith that “The Baron d’Holbac … told me that there was one under his Eye that was translating your Theory of moral Sentiments” and that a second savant, one “Mr Fitzmaurice”, was involved in some way in this translation project (see Letter #77, reprinted in Mossner & Ross 1987).[viii] Hume also tells Smith that both Holbach and Fitzmaurice “wish to know if you propose to make any Alterations on the Work, and desire you to inform me of your Intentions in that particular” (ibid.). Still others, however, have suggested that the French translator of Smith’s first work was one Abbé Blavet.[ix]

For his part, Smith replied to Hume’s 28 October 1763 letter on 12 December 1763 (see Appendix E, Letter A in Mossner & Ross 1987), writing as follows:

Make my most respectful complements to the Baron de Holbac. The second edition of my Book is extremely incorrectly printed. I think it necessary however that it should be followed, rather than the first edition which is not quite so incorrect, on account of a very considerable addition which I have made to the third Part in order to obviate an objection of our friend Elliot. As soon as I have a months leisure I intend to new cast both the second and third parts of it, of which the form is at present by no means agreeable to me. A months leisure, however, is what I very seldom have in my present situation. It may be a year hence before I am able to execute this, and I should be sorry if the translation we[re] to stop upon this account. As soon as I have executed it I shall communicate the alterations to the Baron de Holbac the very day I deliver them to the English Bookseller.

In other words, although the first edition of Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments contained fewer errors than the second edition, part three of the second edition contained “a very considerable addition” (ibid.), a revision that Smith wanted to see included in the translation. Also, Smith indicates that he is going to make additional substantial revisions to parts two and three of his treatise but that, at the same time, he would hate to further delay the translation of his work as is: “I should be sorry if the translation we[re] to stop upon this account” (ibid.). Smith’s reply to Hume thus leads me to believe that it was the first edition of The Theory of Moral Sentiments, not the second edition, that was translated into French in 1763 or 1764.

Moreover, Smith’s first great work had not only been translated into French in 1764; this translation had also been reviewed in three of Paris’s four great literary journals: the prestigious periodical Correspondence littéraire, philosophique et critique had published a short one-paragraph review of this new French translation in December 1764,[x] while the Année littéraire, a French literary periodical led by Élie-Catherine Fréron (1718–1776), a leading light of the “Counter-Enlightenment” (see generally Balcou 1975), published a much longer, 24-page review of the French translation of Smith’s work, also in 1764.[xi] (Fréron had published eight issues of his literary journal in 1764, and the review of the Métaphysique de L’âme appears on pages 145-168 of the sixth issue.[xii]) In addition, the Journal encyclopédique (vol. 7) published a prominent and favorable review of the original first edition of Smith’s moral philosophy treatise in October of 1759. (Alas, a fourth Parisian literary newsletter–Mémoires secrets pour servir à l’histoire de la république des lettres en France, depuis 1762 Jusqu’à nos jours–did not take any notice of Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments.)

In short, by the time of Smith’s return to the French capital in 1766, his Theory of Moral Sentiments had already captured the attention of the Baron d’Holbach, had been translated into French, the lingua franca of the Enlightenment, and had also been reviewed in three of the leading Parisian periodicals. In addition to the attention paid to him by the philosophes of Paris, what other attractions captured Smith’s attention? Among other things, Smith’s reputation may have led to invitations to the celebrated salons of the leading ladies of pre-revolutionary Paris.

To be continued …

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[i] The Journal encyclopédique was founded in 1756 by Pierre Rousseau, who was also its editor. This journal became the Journal Encyclopédique ou Universel in 1775 and was later merged into the Esprit des journals in 1793. See generally Wagner 1991, Article #730, available online at https://dictionnaire-journaux.gazettes18e.fr/journal/0730-le-journal-encyclopedique.

[ii] The second edition of The Theory of Moral Sentiments was published in 1761. For a survey of the main revisions Smith made in the second edition of his work, see Ross 2010, pp. 178-185.

[iii] For a history of the French language as the lingua franca of Europe, see Wright 2016.

[iv] This translation was reviewed in L’Année littéraire (1764, Vol. 6, pp. 145-168); see also Chisick 2004, pp. 242-243; Faccarello & Steiner 2002.

[v] See the footnote corresponding to the review of Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments in the 1 December 1764 issue of the Correspondence littéraire, philosophique et critique, which is reprinted in Tourneux 1878, pp. 143-144, p. 144 n.1.

[vi] According to French historian Jacques Kafker (1989, p. 139), Eidous had translated more than forty works during his lifetime, including Robert James’s Dictionary of Medicine. See Kafker 1989, p. 139. See also entry for “Eidous” in the Biographie universelle ancien et moderne, Vol. 12 (1855), p. 324

[vii] Mr. Fitzmaurice may refer to Sir William Petty, Viscount Fitzmaurice, who later became the 2nd Earl of Shelburne. See note 1 to Letter #28 in Mossner & Ross 1987.

[viii] The relevant part of Hume’s Oct. 28 letter to Smith reads (Letter #77 in Mossner & Ross 1987):

The Baron d’Holbac, whom I saw at Paris, told me, that there was one under his Eye that was translating your Theory of moral Sentiments; and desir[e]d me to inform you of it: Mr Fitzmaurice, your old Friend, interests himself strongly in this Undertaking: Both of them wish to know, if you propose to make any Alterations on the Work, and desire you to inform me of your Intentions in that particular.

[ix] See Yoshiaki Sudo & Hisashi Shinohara (1985), cited note 4 to “Appendix E New Letters” of Mossner & Ross 1987. Sudo & Shinohara have also indicated that Blavet’s translation was of the first edition of Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments.

[x] This review is reprinted in Tourneux 1878 [1764], pp. 143-144. The author of the short and anonymous review observes that Smith’s work has not enjoyed as much success in France as it has in England, mainly because of the poor quality of the translation. As mentioned in the text, a footnote identifies one “Eidous” as the translator of Smith’s first magnum opus. See ibid., p. 144 n.1.

[xi] See Chisick 2004, p. 260, n.23. The Mémoires secrets was first published in London as a multi-volume set from 1781 to 1789, but this literary journal originally circulated in pre-revolutionary Paris as a manuscript newsletter. See, e.g., Goodman 1996, p. 43..

[xii] See L’Année littéraire 1764, Vol. 6, pp. 145-168, available online at https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bd6t53745812/f154.item.