One detail that most of Adam Smith’s biographers get wrong is his departure date from Geneva. Dugald Stewart, for example, has Smith leaving the little republic in December of 1765 and arriving in Paris for the final phase of his Grand Tour on or “about Christmas 1765”. [See page 302 of Dugald Stewart, “Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith, LL.D.” (the cover page of which is pictured above), in W. P. D. Wightman, editor, Essays on Philosophical Subjects, Liberty Fund (1982), pp. 263-351, available here.] Three different pieces of evidence, however, indicate that Smith remained in the Swiss city-state for a much longer period of time — at least until the end of January or beginning of February 1766.

One is a letter dated 9 January 1766 from Kenneth Mackenzie, Duke Henry’s agent in London, stating that the duke and his younger brother Hew Campbell Scott “are now at Geneva”. [See N. A. S. GD 224/37717/9, Kenneth Mackenzie to Archibald Campbell, 9 January 1766, cited in Bonnyman (2009), p. 165 n.374.] Recall that Duke Henry and his brother were Adam Smith’s pupils and were thus under his care at this time, while Kenneth Mackenzie, who may have been Kenneth Mackenzie of Ferryden, served as Duke Henry’s agent throughout his minority, and as the young duke’s agent, Mackenzie would be in regular correspondence with his principal. [See Brian D. Bonnyman, Agricultural Improvement in the Scottish Enlightenment: The Third Duke of Buccleuch, William Keir and the Buccleuch Estates, 1751-1812, PhD Thesis, University of Edinburgh (2004), p. 17 n.2, available here.]

Another piece of evidence is the diurnal travel diary of Horace Walpole, who was residing in Paris from September 1765 to April 1766. Walpole was not only annotating his comings-and-goings in the French capital on a daily basis during his seven-month sojourn in the City of Light; he was also residing in the very same Parisian townhouse where Adam Smith and his pupils would be staying at during the last phase of their grand tour: the Hôtel du Parc Royal on the Rue du Colombier (today, Rue Jacob) in the fashionable Faubourg Saint-Germain. [See F. E. Guerra-Pujol & Alain Alcouffe, “Adam Smith in the City of Light”, Adam Smith Review (forthcoming), available here.] According to Ian Simpson Ross [The Life of Adam Smith, Oxford University Press, 2nd edition (2010), p. 209, citation omitted], “The first news from Paris of Smith being there comes from Horace Walpole, who recorded on 2 March 1766 that [they] had gone to an ‘Italian play’ … at the Comedie-Italienne”.

In fact, Adam Smith or his pupil Duke Henry are mentioned by name in Horace Walpole’s meticulous travel journal almost two-dozen times in all, and the first reference to Adam Smith in Walpole’s journal appears two weeks earlier — 15 February 1766 — for his journal entry for that date begins thus: “Dr. Smith came”. (See again Guerra-Pujol and Alcouffe, cited above.) Considering that Horace Walpole and Smith’s party were all residing in the same townhouse in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, Walpole’s report is a reliable one.

Last but not least is a piece of correspondence dated 5 February 1766 from Georges-Louis Le Sage, a prominent Genevan scientist who had contributed articles to the Encyclopédie. This letter — which is addressed to the salonnière Louise Elisabeth Nicole de La Rochefoucauld (the Duchesse d’Enville), a mutual acquaintance of Smith and Le Sage’s — suggests that the Scottish philosopher was still in Geneva as late as February 1766: “Of all the people I meet at your house …, I continue to see only the excellent Mylord Stanhope and somewhat Mr. Smith. The latter [Adam Smith] wished me to make the acquaintance of Lady Conyers and the Duke of Buckleugh, but I begged him to reserve that kindness for me till his return” (quoted in Rae 1895, pp. 191-192; Ross 2010, p. 209; see also Rasmussen 2017, p. 286 n.61).

Le Sage’s letter also suggests that Smith may have resided with the Duchesse d’Enville during his sojourn in Geneva, a plausible possibility given that another Scottish traveller, James Macdonald (1741-1766), 8th Baronet of Sleat, had also resided with the duchesse during his stayover in Geneva in October 1765. But who was the Duchesse d’Enville, and what was Adam Smith’s relation to her? As it happens, the relationship between the Scottish philosopher and the Duchesse d’Enville is one of the most fascinating — yet underexplored — chapters of Smith’s grand tour years. Alain Alcouffe and I will return to Adam Smith and the Duchesse d’Enville when we conclude our series on “Adam Smith in Switzerland” next week.