prior probability

In addition to the Parisian salons of Madame du Deffand, the Duchesse d’Enville, and the Comtesse de Boufflers (see our previous posts in this series), the Scottish philosopher and political economist Adam Smith also visited several other noteworthy places in the City of Light during his Paris sojourn in 1766:

• On 2 March, he attended a play at the Comédie-Italienne in the former Hôtel de Bourgogne on the rue Mauconseil (see Horace Walpole’s travel journal).
• On 15 March, he visited the Scots College in Paris (Collegium Scoticum or Collège des Écossais) on the rue du Cardinal-Lemoine (ibid.).
• On 7 April, he dined at the townhouse of Lady Mary Chabot (ibid.). (Nota bene: Although we are not 100% certain, Alain and I believe Lady Mary Chabot might refer to Lady Mary Apollonia Scholastica Stafford-Howard (1721–1769), the daughter of William Stafford-Howard, 2nd Earl of Stafford, and the second wife and widow of Guy Augustus de Chabot-Rohan (1683-1760), who was also known as the comte de Chabot; in the meantime, we are still researching the precise location of the Chabot townhouse.)
• On 4 June, he most likely celebrated the birthday of King George III at the British Embassy in Paris, which was located in the Hôtel de Brancas, also known as the Hôtel de Lassay (a close-up of which is pictured below) on rue de l’Université. (Today, the Hôtel de Lassay is used as the official residence of the President of the French National Assembly and is located in the 7th arrondissement of Paris.)
• In addition to the above places, at some point in time during his Paris sojourn Smith also most likely attended the salon of the Baron d’Holbach on the rue Royale-Saint-Roch, and he may have also paid Madame Riccoboni a visit at her apartment on the rue Poissonnière.

Note: This blog post is based on the first draft of part 6 of my forthcoming paper with Alain Alcouffe, “Adam Smith and the salons of pre-revolutionary Paris” (footnotes omitted):

In addition to the celebrated salons of Madame du Deffand (see here) and the Duchesse d’Enville (here), it is also likely that Adam Smith visited the Paris salon of Madame la Comtesse de Boufflers, Marie Charlotte Hippolyte de Saujon (1725-1800), who was not only one of the most prominent salonnières of the Ancien Régime; she was also one of the most prominent Anglophiles in Paris, a femme de lettres who corresponded with and hosted such great Enlightenment figures as David Hume and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Among other things, Madame la Comtesse de Boufflers and her consort, the 6th Prince of Conti, Louis François de Bourbon (1717-1776), also hosted twice-weekly soirées and dinner parties (soupers) in their townhouse on the grounds of the Prince of Conti’s urbane Parisian compound, known as Le Temple. Historian Ernest Mossner describes their sumptuous soupers thus:

On Mondays the Prince de Conti was accustomed to give suppers to fifty or a hundred people. In the centre of the grand assembly room, the Prince and the Comtesse received their guests with formal dignity. The men stood in three ranks, the ladies sat on dainty chairs in a circle. But it was in the small Salon of the Four Mirrors that the distinctive reputation of the Temple was made. Mme de Boufflers was the soul of the salon, and Anglomania its prevailing atmosphere. Tea in the English fashion was served early in the evening as the last rays of the sun, reflected in the mirrors, tinted the walls with living colours. In the tradition inaugurated by the Regent to encourage free conversation, no servants were present. The ladies, wearing dainty aprons, lighted the lamps under the urns, poured the tea, cut the cakes, and passed the plates. For-incidental music, there might be a singer or a player upon the lute or the harpsichord. In the painting of Tea in the English fashion at the Prince de Conti’s made by Michel Barthelémy Ollivier in 1766, the child prodigy Mozart is seated upon a high chair before an open harpsichord. (Mossner 1980, p. 459, footnote omitted)

For visual reference, below is a reproduction of another 1766 oil painting by Michel Barthelemy Ollivier, Supper of Prince de Conti at the Temple:

The Prince of Conti’s lavish Paris compound, Le Temple, was located in the Marias district of the French capital (in today’s 3rd arrondissement), about 2.4 kilometers (1.5 miles) from the intersection of the rue de Seine and the original rue du Colombier. It was originally a medieval fortress built by the Knight Templars in the 12th and 13th centuries. Years later, Le Temple would be used to imprison Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, and their children after the storming of the Tuileries palace in 1792. Although this historic structure was later destroyed during the tumult of the French Revolution (Mossner 1980, p. 459), it was immortalized on Plate 9 of the 1739 Turgot map of Paris, a close-up of which is presented below:

As it happens, we know that Smith and Madame la Comtesse de Boufflers met on more than one occasion. Although neither Boufflers nor the Prince of Conti are mentioned in Smith’s surviving Paris correspondence, other evidence indicates that Smith was personally acquainted with her and was a guest at her salon. In a letter addressed to her close friend and confidant David Hume, which is dated 6 May 1766, the Comtesse de Boufflers writes: “Je vous ai dit, ce me semble, que j’ai fait connoissance avec M. Smith, et que, pour l’amour de vous, je l’avois fort accueilli.” (“I told you, it seems to me, that I became acquainted with Mr. Smith, and that, for your sake, I warmly welcomed him.”) 

In other words, the Comtesse de Boufflers tells Hume that she “warmly welcomed” Smith (“je l’avois fort accueilli”). This declaration implies that Smith must have attended her famed salon at least once in the spring of 1766, i.e. during his second visit to Paris. In fact, Smith may have visited the Temple and Madame de Boufflers more than once, for in another letter addressed to David Hume, this one dated 25 July 1766, the Comtesse reports: “Je fait prier votre ami Mr Smith de venir chez moi. Il me quitte à l’instant.” (“I prayed for your friend Mr Smith to pay me a visit. He’s leaving me right now.”)

I have been following this case closely and have blogged about it before. (See here, here, here, and here.) In brief, Francesca Gino, the disgraced Harvard Business School (HBS) professor who was celebrated for her research on honesty and ethical behavior (!), had been accused of faking her research results. (See, for example, the YouTube video below.) Now, according to this report in yesterday’s (26 May) edition of the Harvard Crimson, Harvard University has revoked her academic tenure and ended her employment at HBS. For my part, I explore the possibility of extending tort liability to data fraud in my 2017 paper “Legal Liability for Research Fraud“.

A day that will live in infamy: 26 August 2021 was the third largest single-day loss of life for our US armed forces in Afghanistan — 11 Marines, one sailor, and one soldier were killed in Kabul during our precipitous abandonment of our Afghan allies. Incredibly, no one in the chain of command was held accountable for the deaths of our fallen heroes.

Alain and I will resume our series on “Adam Smith and the salons of pre-revolutionary Paris” after Memorial Day; in the meantime, here is another Morgan Wallen banger for your auditory enjoyment:

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.

Note: This blog post is based on the first draft of part 4 of my forthcoming paper with Alain Alcouffe, “Adam Smith and the salons of pre-revolutionary Paris” (footnotes omitted):

Located just a few steps from the Rue du Colombier was the Hôtel de la Rochefoucauld (formerly, the Hôtel de Liancourt), the Paris townhouse of one of Adam Smith’s Geneva contacts, Louise Elisabeth de La Rochefoucauld (1716-1797), Madame la duchesse d’Enville. Although she was little-remembered until the recent studies of Michèle Crogiez (2018) and Daniel Vaugelade (2002), in her lifetime she was a well-known salonnière and femme de lettres who hosted and corresponded with John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Adam Smith. Her Paris townhouse, the Hôtel de la Rochefoucauld, was located on the rue de Seine in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, just around the corner from the Rue du Colombier.

Her hôtel particulier was originally built in 1623 for the Count of Liancourt, who bequeathed it to his nephew, François de La Rochefoucauld, and it remained in the de La Rochefoucauld family until it was confiscated by the Revolution. As it happens, the Hôtel de la Rochefoucauld and its surrounding gardens—even a fountain and the individual trees in the garden—are represented in the Turgot map, a close-up of which is presented below:

So, did Adam Smith visit the Hôtel de la Rochefoucauld during his sojourn in Paris in 1766? How could he not have? Described as “a woman of great ability” and a “devoted friend of Turgot” (Rae 1895, p. 192), she first befriended Adam Smith during his sojourn in Geneva in late 1765. In summary, according to Dugald Stewart (1793, III.10; Wightman 1982, p. 303), it was in Geneva that Adam Smith “received many attentions” from the duchesse. For his part, John Rae (1895, p. 192) goes further. According to Rae, Smith was a “steady guest” at her house during his sojourn in Geneva. (See also Alcouffe & Guerra-Pujol, forthcoming.)

Accordingly, given their pre-existing friendship, the fact that both Smith and the duchesse found themselves in Paris for most of 1766, and the geographical proximity of their Parisian townhouses (see the close-up of Plate 11 of the Turgot map, pictured above), it is highly likely that Adam Smith attended the Duchesse d’Enville’s salon in Paris. Also, given the close friendship between the Duchesse d’Enville and the intendant Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, it is likely that it was here—in the salon of the Duchesse d’Enville—that Adam Smith met the influential free-market économiste.

Alas, the Hôtel de la Rochefoucauld was demolished after the Revolution in 1825. Today, this stretch of the rue de Seine, situated in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, is popular among tourists, since it is so close to many famed Parisian landmarks, including the Café de Flore, Les Deux Magots, and the Jardin du Luxembourg. For visual reference, pictured below are the original façade (as seen from the rue de Seine) and ground-floor plan of the original Hôtel de la Rochefoucauld (Hôtel de Liancourt) before it was torn down in 1825:

Note: This blog post is based on the first draft of part 3 of my forthcoming paper with Alain Alcouffe, “Adam Smith and the salons of pre-revolutionary Paris” (footnotes are below the fold):

Adam Smith’s primary residence during his sojourn in Paris in 1766 was the Hôtel Parc Royal on the rue du Colombier. Alas, the precise location of the Hôtel du Parc Royal is a mystery. For starters, a street-numbering ordinance was not enacted in Paris until 1768, two years after Smith’s stay in the French capital.[1] Also, according to the Dictionnaire Historique des Rues de Paris (Hillairet 1964, Vol. 1, p. 665), “rue du Colombier” was renamed “rue Jacob” in 1836. It is possible that the Parc Royal was located on today’s 37 rue Jacob or the present 41 rue Jacob; the entries for those particular street numbers in the Dictionnaire Historique des Rues de Paris read “Ex-hôtel” (ibid., p. 666).[2]

Nevertheless, although we do not know much about the Parc-Royal, we know that it was described as one of “the best hotels or lodging houses” in the “Quartier S. Germain des Pres” in the 1768 edition of The Gentleman’s Guide in his Tour through France,[3] and even more importantly, we also know that two of Smith contemporaries, his close friend David Hume and Horace Walpole, the son of a former prime minister, both lodged at the Parc-Royal during their stays in Paris. According to Mossner (1980, p. 504), for example, Hume had relocated to the Parc-Royal in November of 1765 and stayed there until his departure from Paris on January 4, 1766. For his part, Horace Walpole stayed at the Hôtel du Parc Royal from October 1765 until his departure from Paris in April 1766.[4] That such luminaries as David Hume and Horace Walpole would stay at the Parc-Royal is some indication of this hotel’s quality.[5] It is even possible that David Hume recommended the Parc-Royal to Adam Smith and that Smith occupied Hume’s rooms after the latter’s departure on January 4, 1766.

Today, the rue de Colombier is the rue Jacob, a quiet street in the 6th arrondissement of modern-day Paris.[6] At the time of Smith’s stay, however, the rue du Colombier and the rue Jacob formed one long street. Writing in May of 1766, for example, the Reverend William Cole describes the scene thus: “This Rue du Colombier, & the Rue Jacob make one long Street from the Rue du Seine quite down to the River; & the Rue des Petits Augustins, where I lodged came into this long Street, near the Joining together of the Rue du Colombier & the Rue Jacob” (Cole 1931, pp. 52-53, punctuation and spelling in the original).

Back in 1766, the Hôtel du Parc Royal and the rue de Colombier were not only located in one of the most fashionable quarters of Paris at the time, the Faubourg Saint-Germain;[7] they were also in very close proximity to three of the most famed salons of pre-revolutionary Paris, the salons of the Duchesse d’Enville in the hôtel de la Rochefoucauld and that of Madame du Deffand in the Convent of Saint-Joseph as well as the informal salon of her protégée and eventual rival, Mademoiselle Julie Lespinasse, located just down the street. Before proceeding, however, below is a close-up of the “Rue du Colombier,” as it appears on the 1739 Turgot map of Paris, for the reader’s reference. (Notice how close it is to the hôtel de la Rochefoucauld, the location of the salon of the duchess of d’Enville.)

Alain and I will resume our series on “Adam Smith and the salons of pre-revolutionary Paris” in our next post. In the meantime, via Wikipedia (footnotes omitted): “As of April 2025, 90 emergencies have been declared; 41 have expired and another 49 are currently in effect, each having been renewed annually by the president.” Why am I reminded of Aesop’s fable “The Boy Who Cried Wolf“? (Cf. this 2019 report by Katharina Buchholz, from which the infographic below is taken.)