(Author’s note: below is Part 3 of my series of blog posts on Adam Smith’s second visit to Paris; footnotes are below the fold.)

… Smith was there [in Paris] precisely at the peak of Physiocratic influence, 1766. (Young 2002, p. 10)

… the encounters with the economic theorists of France can be considered one of the most exciting passages in Smith’s intellectual development, second in importance only to his early contacts with Hume. (Ross 1984, p. 185; Ross 2010, p. 231)

“Physiocracy” was no doubt an influential school of political economy at the time, one that Smith would later discuss in Book IV of The Wealth of Nations, but is the assessment in the second passage above–though by no less an authority than Ian Simpson Ross–an accurate one, or is it pure hyperbole? What, in short, did Adam Smith learn from the so-called “physiocrats”? (See generally Carey 2020.) As an aside, I am placing the label “physiocrat” inside scare quotes because the eminent luminaries of the famed laissez-faire school did not call themselves by this label, but rather referred to themselves as les économistes. (In fact, the term “physiocracy” was first coined by Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours in 1767, i.e. the year after Smith had concluded his travels, with the publication of Physiocratie, ou Constitution Naturelle du Gouvernement le Plus Avantageux au Genre Humain. See G. Smith 2008, p. 378.)

We know that Smith did meet with both Anne Robert Jacques Turgot and François Quesnay, especially during Smith’s second and third visits to Paris in 1766, because Smith himself refers to his personal discussions with Turgot and Quesnay in his personal correspondence during this time. (See Letters 93, 94, and 97, reprinted in Mossner & Ross 1987.) But when and where did they meet, and what did they talk about?

Did Smith, for example, ask Quesnay or Turgot about their entries in Diderot and d’Alembert’s famed Encyclopedia? Did Smith discuss any of the ideas in Turgot’s Reflections on the Formation and Distribution of Wealth, which the the Frenchman was writing at the time? Did Smith confer with either économiste about the problems of taxation or take notice of the commotion caused by the recent publication of Richesses de l’Etat in May of 1763, a provocative political pamphlet whose title is similar to Turgot’s Reflections and Smith’s Wealth of Nations? By the same token, was Smith aware of the tableau economique or any of the five political economy papers that Quesnay himself may have published in 1766 (see Fonseca n.d.), including Quesnay’s “Analyse de la formule arithmétique du Tableau Économique de la distribution des dépenses annuelles d’une Nation agricole”, which was published in the June 1766 issue of Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours’s Journal de l’agriculture, du commerce et des finances. Or was Smith aware of the 1763 and 1764 royal edicts liberalizing the grain trade in most of France? As it happens, one of the most remarkable natural experiments in the annals of political economy was occurring on French soil at this very moment in history, the brain child of the so-called Physiocrats. At their instigation (see, e.g., Bloomfield 1938, pp. 733-734), France had recently deregulated the sale of grain–the kingdom’s most essential agricultural staple–but in Paris the old police regulations and price controls still applied. (See generally Kaplan 2016. See also Baker 1978, p. 701; Charbit 2002, p. 875; Touzery 1994, p. 516.) The people of the Kingdom of France were thus literal guinea pigs in a massive real-time clinical trial, with Parisians serving as the control group.

Alas, there is no direct evidence that Smith discussed any of these topics or problems of political economy with either Quesnay or Turgot, and any statement to the contrary is pure speculation. The first point to consider is the opportunity of a meeting. Adam Smith was in Paris on three occasions: 10 or 12 days in February 1764 (Rae 1895, p. 174; Ross 2010, p. 210), followed by two extended stays in 1766. Specifically, Smith remained in Paris from February 1766 to July 1766, was in Compiègne for an extended visit in August 1766, and then returned to Paris in September or October 1766. What about Quesnay or Turgot?

François Quesnay was a royal physician and was thus based for most of the year in the Palace of Versailles, Fontainebleau, or the Château de Compiègne, the latter place being Louis XV’s place of residence during the summer months. Thus, it is most likely that Smith and Quesnay first met during Smith’s extended stay in Compiègne in August 1766, for the first time the name of Quesnay is mentioned in Smith’s correspondence is in a letter by Smith to Lord Townshend. (See Letter #94, reprinted in Mossner & Ross 1987.) The letter is dated 26 August 1766 and Smith’s return address is Compiègne. (Ibid.)

In fact, Quesnay is mentioned only one other time in Smith’s surviving correspondence–the other reference to Quesnay appears in Smith’s 15 October 1766 letter to Lady Frances, the sister of his pupils, Henry and Hew Campbell Scott. (See Letter #97.) Neither of these letters, however, make any mention of political economy. Instead, both letters are devoted to the physical ailments of the pupils under Smith’s care and to the efforts of Quesnay and other eminent physicians to treat their respective illnesses.

For his part, Turgot was based in Limoges in central France from 1761 to 1774, for Turgot was a royal Intendant (tax collector) for the French provinces of Angomois, Basse-Marche, and Limousin, a region later known as Limoges. Furthermore, we know that Turgot could not have been in Paris during the first half of 1766, for his own correspondence shows that he spent the first part of 1766 in Limoges. (See Groenewegen 1993 [1969], p. 107 & p. 116, n.6.) Turgot was, however, “definitely in Paris from July to September 1766.”[i] Smith and Turgot’s main opportunity of meeting would therefore have occurred either in July 1766 or September 1766, depending on how long Smith’s August 1766 stay in Compiègne lasted.

According to one contemporary source (André Morellet), Smith and Turgot may have met on several occasions: “M. Turgot, who like me loved things metaphysical, estimated [Adam Smith’s] talents greatly. We saw [Smith] several times; [Smith] was presented at the house of M. Helvetius; we talked of commercial theory, banking, public credit and several points in the great work he was meditating …” (Morellet, Mémoires, Vol. I, p. 237). Although this extract makes reference to Turgot’s Reflections, there is no additional evidence to show whether Smith discussed any problems of political economy with Turgot. What we do have direct evidence of, however, is that Smith and Turgot took great interest in l’affaire Rousseau-Hume and discussed this matter at length among themselves. In a letter to his friend David Hume dated 6 July 1766 (Letter #93), Smith writes:

I am thoroughly convinced that Rousseau is as great a Rascal as you, and as every man here believes him to be; yet let me beg of you not to think of publishing anything to the world upon the very great impertinence which he has been guilty of to you…. Your whole friends here [Paris] wish you not to write, the Baron [d’Holbach], D’Alembert,  Madame Riccaboni, Mademoiselle Riancourt, Mr Turgot etc. etc.

In addition, Smith singles out the opinion of his fellow political economist Turgot at the very end of his July 6 letter to Hume (ibid.):

Mr Turgot, a friend every way worthy of you, desired me to recommend this advice to you in a Particular manner, as his most earnest entreaty and opinion. He and I are both afraid that you are surrounded with evil counsellours, and that the Advice of your English literati, who are themselves accustomed to publish all their little gossiping stories in Newspapers, may have too much influence upon you.

This second passage suggests that Smith and Turgot took great interest in the Hume-Rousseau affair and discussed this matter at length among themselves, but there is no direct evidence, either in Smith’s own meagre correspondence or in that of Turgot, that they discussed any of the great issues of political economy of the day, such as the ongoing debate over taxation or the effects of the liberalization of the grain trade or the economic table of Quesnay.

To recap, we know for certain that Smith and Quesnay discussed the health of Smith’s pupils, and we also know for certain that Smith and Turgot discussed the Hume-Rousseau affair. Of course, it is plausible to assume that Smith, Quesnay, and Turgot also discussed problems of political economy, but to quote one scholar (Groenewegen 1993 [1969], p. 107), “it appears just as likely that they discussed philosophy, history, law, philology and literature”.[ii] Moreover, the économistes were not the only leading lights that Smith met during his second Paris sojourn, for he also befriended a best-selling literary lady and possible love interest, Madame Marie-Jeanne Riccoboni.

To be continued …

[i] For evidence in support of this conjecture, Groenewegen (1993 [1969], p. 116, n.7) cites three letters from Turgot addressed to David Hume, which are reprinted in J. Hill Burton, Letters of Eminent Persons Addressed to David Hume, Edinburgh, 1849, pp. 130–148.

[ii] Cf. Groenewegen 1993 [1969], p. 116, n.14: “Both Turgot and Smith had written on these subjects and they therefore shared many more interests than just economics”, citing “S. Feilbogen, Smith und Turgot, Vienna, 1892, p. 17”.