Note: This blog post is based on the first draft of part 5 of my forthcoming paper with Alain Alcouffe, “Adam Smith and the salons of pre-revolutionary Paris” (footnotes omitted):

Located about 1.5 kilometers (0.93 miles) from the intersection of the rue de Seine and the original rue du Colombier (today, rue Jacob) was the grounds of the Saint-Joseph convent in the Faubourg Saint-Germain-des-Près. Originally, this neighborhood was an agricultural suburb of Paris located outside the old city walls of medieval Paris, but by the 18th century this quiet quarter was becoming one of the most exclusive and fashionable parts of the City of Light. More importantly, here is where the legendary salonnière Madame du Deffand, née Marie de Vichy-Champrond (1696-1780), held her famed salon, on the third floor of her crowded apartment on the rue Saint-Dominique, not far from the Hôtel du Parc Royal on the rue du Colombier, where Smith (along with Horace Walpole) was lodging for most of 1766.

A wealthy patroness of the arts and spirited woman of letters with a sharp tongue, Madame du Deffand was the oldest and one of the most famous of the living salonnières at the time (she was born in the 1696). [To learn more about Madame du Deffand and her salon, see Benedetta Craveri, Madame Du Deffand and Her World, Boston: Godine (1994).] Among other things, Madame du Deffand is known today for her friendship and voluminous correspondence with the English aesthete and man of letters Horace Walpole, but in her lifetime her main claim to fame was her prominent salon, which began meeting after the death of her husband in 1750. Her famed salon met in private apartments on the grounds of the Convent of Saint-Joseph off of the rue Saint-Dominique. For visual reference, pictured below are Plate 16 of the Turgot map, which reveals the course of the rue Saint-Dominique, folllowed by a close-up of the bottom of Plate 16, which shows the approximate location of the grounds of the Saint-Joseph convent, where Madame du Deffand held her salon:

But did Adam Smith ever visit the famed salon of Madame du Deffand during his 1766 sojourn in Paris? One piece of evidence in support of this conjecture is this intriguing entry in Walpole’s travel journal, dated Easter Sunday, 30 March 1766: “To Mme du Deffand. Mr Smith came.”

Postscript: What became of Madame du Deffand’s salon? The Saint-Joseph convent was confiscated by Revolution and soon thereafter transferred to the Ministry of War. Today, the grounds of the former convent are still occupied by the France’s Ministère des Armées.