… there remain opportunities, even at this late date, for remedying the present meagre knowledge of Adam Smith’s life. [W. R. Scott, “Studies relating to Adam Smith in the last fifty years”, Proceedings of the British Academy (1940), Appendix II, p. 273]

My colleague and friend Alain Alcouffe and I have been researching Adam Smith’s extended residency in the Republic of Geneva. Suffice it to say that this visit was no mere stopover but rather one of the highpoints of Smith’s grand tour years (1764-66), for it was during this time that Smith met the legendary literary figure Voltaire and befriended one of the most beautiful and influential salonnières of the Enlightenment era: Louise Elisabeth de La Rochefoucauld, the duchesse d’Enville (pictured below). For your reference, below is a compilation of our previous posts on “Adam Smith in Switzerland” (organized thematically):

I. Adam Smith’s Arrival and Departure

1. Adam Smith in Geneva: arrival
2. Adam Smith’s departure from Geneva
3. Bonus: Six sols (Geneva, 1765)

II. Why Geneva? Reasons for Visiting the Swiss City-State

1. Prologue: Adam Smith in Geneva
2. Adam Smith in Geneva: Voltaire versus Rousseau
3. Adam Smith and Rousseau the fugitive
4. Adam Smith in Switzerland: the Smith-Tronchin Connection
5. Adam Smith, J-J Rousseau, and the Geneva theater question
6. The Voltaire conspiracy
7. The Voltaire conspiracy: revealing Rousseau’s dark secret

III. Adam Smith and Voltaire

1. Adam Smith and the Fracas at Ferney
2. Fracas at Ferney, part 2: the case of Dillon’s dead dog
3. Fracas at Ferney, part 3: the Adam Smith connection
4. Adam Smith and the Voltaire-Needham Affair
5. Preview: Voltaire’s vendetta
6. Origins of Voltaire’s vendetta
7. Voltaire-Adam Smith Postscript

IV. Adam Smith and the Syndics

1. The Scottish moral philosopher and the Swiss statesman: Adam Smith and the Syndic Turretin
2. The Scottish moral philosopher and the Swiss statesman, part 2
3. Rousseau versus the Republic of Geneva
4. Rousseau against the world
5. Geneva, November 1765
6. Geneva, December 1765: the political plot thickens
7. January 1766: the Banana Republic of Geneva?

V. Adam Smith and the Duchesse d’Enville

1. Bonnyman on Adam Smith and the Duchesse d’Enville
2. Ross on Adam Smith and the Duchesse d’Enville
3. John Rae and Dugald Stewart on Adam Smith and the Duchesse d’Enville
4. Abbé Colbert on Adam Smith and the Duchesse d’Enville
5. A conjecture re: Adam Smith and the duchesse d’Enville

VI. Switzerland in The Wealth of Nations

1. Switzerland in *The Wealth of Nations*
2. Switzerland in *The Wealth of Nations*, part 2
3. Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith on watchmaker apprenticeships
4. Bonus: Some additional topics of discussion re: Adam Smith in Switzerland