prior probability

(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 …

Author’s note: below is Part 2 of my series of blog posts on Adam Smith’s second visit to Paris; footnotes are below the fold. (I discussed his first visit to Paris last week.)

Voltaire had heard of him, David Hume was his intimate, students had travelled all the way from Russia to hear his labored but enthusiastic [lectures]. (Heilbroner 1999, p. 42)

When Adam Smith installed himself in Paris in 1766, he was already one of the foremost philosophers of his age. In summary, his reputation in Parisian intellectual circles and in the wider République des lettres of the European Enlightenment was a function of two variables. One is the reception in France of Smith’s first magnum opus, The Theory of Moral Sentiments; the other is his close connection with David Hume, who had already befriended many of the leading philosophes and salonnières of the French capital and spoken highly of Smith during his (Hume’s) celebrated residency in Paris from October 1763 to January 1766. Much has already been written of Hume’s Parisian sojourn and of his friendship with Smith (Mossner 1980; Rasmussen 2017), so I will focus instead on the early reception of The Theory of Moral Sentiments in France.

First off, soon after the publication of Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments in 1759, the first French-language publication to take notice of Smith’s new treatise was a subscription periodical, the Journal encyclopédique, which published a prominent and favorable review of the first edition of The Theory of Moral Sentiments as early as October 1759.[i] This review appears on pages 3-18 of the 15 October 1759 edition of the Journal encyclopédique. This issue of the journal consists of 168 pages in all, and “The Theory of Moral Sentiments, by Adam Smith Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow” is the first work to be reviewed there.)

The next chapter in the French reception of Smith’s first magnum opus was the publication, a few years later, of an anonymous French translation of either the first or second edition of The Theory of Moral Sentiments.[ii] This first translation of Smith’s work into French, the lingua franca of Europe at the time,[iii] appeared either in 1763 or 1764 and was titled Métaphysique de l’âme.[iv] There is some controversy, however, as to the identity of Smith’s translator. A contemporary source identifies the translator as one “Eidous”,[v] who was most likely Marc-Antoine Eidous (c.1724-c.1790), a prolific Encyclopédiste — he contributed 450 articles to the first five volumes of Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie — as well as a tireless translator.[vi] (See also Alcouffe & Massot-Bordenave 2020, pp. 26-27.) Another contemporary source (none other than David Hume) identifies “Mr Fitzmaurice”[vii] as the translator.

In a letter dated 28 October 1763, Hume informs Smith that “The Baron d’Holbac … told me that there was one under his Eye that was translating your Theory of moral Sentiments” and that a second savant, one “Mr Fitzmaurice”, was involved in some way in this translation project (see Letter #77, reprinted in Mossner & Ross 1987).[viii] Hume also tells Smith that both Holbach and Fitzmaurice “wish to know if you propose to make any Alterations on the Work, and desire you to inform me of your Intentions in that particular” (ibid.). Still others, however, have suggested that the French translator of Smith’s first work was one Abbé Blavet.[ix]

For his part, Smith replied to Hume’s 28 October 1763 letter on 12 December 1763 (see Appendix E, Letter A in Mossner & Ross 1987), writing as follows:

Make my most respectful complements to the Baron de Holbac. The second edition of my Book is extremely incorrectly printed. I think it necessary however that it should be followed, rather than the first edition which is not quite so incorrect, on account of a very considerable addition which I have made to the third Part in order to obviate an objection of our friend Elliot. As soon as I have a months leisure I intend to new cast both the second and third parts of it, of which the form is at present by no means agreeable to me. A months leisure, however, is what I very seldom have in my present situation. It may be a year hence before I am able to execute this, and I should be sorry if the translation we[re] to stop upon this account. As soon as I have executed it I shall communicate the alterations to the Baron de Holbac the very day I deliver them to the English Bookseller.

In other words, although the first edition of Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments contained fewer errors than the second edition, part three of the second edition contained “a very considerable addition” (ibid.), a revision that Smith wanted to see included in the translation. Also, Smith indicates that he is going to make additional substantial revisions to parts two and three of his treatise but that, at the same time, he would hate to further delay the translation of his work as is: “I should be sorry if the translation we[re] to stop upon this account” (ibid.). Smith’s reply to Hume thus leads me to believe that it was the first edition of The Theory of Moral Sentiments, not the second edition, that was translated into French in 1763 or 1764.

Moreover, Smith’s first great work had not only been translated into French in 1764; this translation had also been reviewed in three of Paris’s four great literary journals: the prestigious periodical Correspondence littéraire, philosophique et critique had published a short one-paragraph review of this new French translation in December 1764,[x] while the Année littéraire, a French literary periodical led by Élie-Catherine Fréron (1718–1776), a leading light of the “Counter-Enlightenment” (see generally Balcou 1975), published a much longer, 24-page review of the French translation of Smith’s work, also in 1764.[xi] (Fréron had published eight issues of his literary journal in 1764, and the review of the Métaphysique de L’âme appears on pages 145-168 of the sixth issue.[xii]) In addition, the Journal encyclopédique (vol. 7) published a prominent and favorable review of the original first edition of Smith’s moral philosophy treatise in October of 1759. (Alas, a fourth Parisian literary newsletter–Mémoires secrets pour servir à l’histoire de la république des lettres en France, depuis 1762 Jusqu’à nos jours–did not take any notice of Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments.)

In short, by the time of Smith’s return to the French capital in 1766, his Theory of Moral Sentiments had already captured the attention of the Baron d’Holbach, had been translated into French, the lingua franca of the Enlightenment, and had also been reviewed in three of the leading Parisian periodicals. In addition to the attention paid to him by the philosophes of Paris, what other attractions captured Smith’s attention? Among other things, Smith’s reputation may have led to invitations to the celebrated salons of the leading ladies of pre-revolutionary Paris.

To be continued …

Author’s note: the next part of my revised paper “Adam Smith in the City of Lights” revisits Smith’s return to Paris in 1766. Below is an excerpt, where I explains how Smith once again found himself in Paris in 1766:

Request to relocate

After taking up residence in the tranquil French town of Toulouse, Smith and Duke Henry were subsequently joined by Henry’s younger brother, Hew Campbell Scott. As a result, the Scottish philosopher now had two teenage boys under his care: Duke Henry, who was 17 when he began his grand tour in Paris in 1764, and Hew, who was just a year younger than Henry.

At some point in time, however, perhaps after the arrival of his brother Hew, Duke Henry wrote a letter to his stepfather, the British politician Charles Townshend (pictured below), requesting permission to relocate to Paris. (As an aside, according to Alain Alcouffe and Philippe Massot-Bordenave, it was Smith–not his teenage pupils Henry and Hew–who wanted to relocate from Toulouse to Paris. Alcouffe and Massot-Bordenave also speculate that Smith was becoming “impatient” to relocate to the French capital. See Alcouffe & Massot-Bordenave 2020, p. 283.)

For his part, Townshend granted the request to relocate in a letter addressed to Duke Henry dated April 22, 1765. (For reference, Lord Townshend’s reply to his stepson is reprinted in full in Alcouffe & Massot-Bordenave 2020, pp. 284–285; Fay 1956, p. 152; and Ross 1974, pp. 182–184.) For some unknown reason, though, Smith was in no hurry to leave Toulouse, after all, for Smith and his teenage pupils remained in the south of France until the fall of 1765 before travelling to Geneva and then to Paris. (See timeline in Alcouffe & Massot-Bordenave 2020, pp. xiii-xiv.) In addition, when Townshend finally granted Duke Henry’s request to relocate to Paris, he also warns his stepson “against any female attachment” (Alcouffe & Massot-Bordenave 2020, p. 284; Ross 1974, p. 184). The relevant (and juiciest) part of Townsend’s letter contains the following injunction:

If you go much into mixed company, as I suppose you will, let me warn you against any female attachment. Your rank & fortune will put women of subtle characters upon projects which you should not be the dupe of, for such connexions make a young man both ridiculous & unhappy. Gallantry is one thing; attachment is another; a young man should manifest spirit & decorum even in this part of his character, & preserve his mind entire & free in lesser as well as greater things.

Could Townsend’s dire admonition “against any female attachment” have also been meant for Adam Smith? (See, e.g., Guerra-Pujol 2021.) Either way, Townsend’s warning may not have been an academic or abstract one, for an aristocratic female contemporary with direct knowledge of Lord Townsend’s habits and dispositions, Lady Louisa Stuart (1827, p. 38), once described Duke Henry’s stepfather as “a man of pleasure, a libertine.” In any case, Smith eventually returned to the City of Light sometime in February 1766, almost two years to the day of his first visit to Paris in 1764.

To be continued …

I will resume my “Smith in the City” series in my next post; in the meantime, below is Kid Travis’s version of “Better Now“:

(Author’s note: below is Part 2 of 3 of my series of blog posts on Adam Smith’s first visit to Paris.)

I take this first opportunity, after my arrival in this Place [Paris], which was not till yesterday to resign my Office into the hands of Your Lordship, of the Dean of Faculty, of the Principal of the College and of all my other most respectable and worthy collegues. Into Your and their hands therefor I do hereby resign my Office of Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow and in the College thereof, with all the emoluments Privileges and advantages which belong to it. I reserve however my Right to the Salary for the current half year which commenced at the 10th of October for one part of my salary and at Martinmass last for another; and I desire that this Salary may be paid to the Gentleman who does that part of my Duty which I was obliged to leave undone, in the manner agreed on between my very worthy Collegues and me before we parted. I never was more anxious for the Good of the College than at this moment and I sincerely wish that whoever is my Successor may not only do Credit to the Office by his Abilities but be a comfort to the very excellent Men with whom he is likely to spend his life, by the Probity of his heart and the Goodness of his Temper.

Adam Smith’s letter of resignation dated 14 Feb. 1764

We know two things for sure about Smith’s first visit to Paris in February 1764. One is that it was a short visit, for less than two weeks after arriving in the French capital, Smith and his pupil Duke Henry proceeded to Toulouse in the south of France, where they lived and travelled for most of the next 18 months. (See generally Alcouffe & Massot-Bordenave 2020.)

The other thing we know is that Smith resigned his professorship on his first full day in the City of Light: Valentine’s Day, 14 Feb. 1764. On that fateful day, Smith wrote a letter addressed to one of his former students, Thomas Miller (Ross 1995, p. 148), who was the Lord Rector of Glasgow University from 1762 to 1764. (See Letter #81, note 1, in Mossner & Ross 1987.) In this letter, Smith does two things: (1) he officially resigns his professorship for good (previously, he had taken a temporary leave of absence), and (2) he asks that the remainder of his salary go to Thomas Young, another former student of Smith’s, who had taken over smith’s moral philosophy lectures when Smith had first taken his leave of absence in the fall of 1763.

Why did Smith decide to resign his prestigious professorship instead of just extending his temporary leave of absence? Whatever his reasons, having resigned his professorship on 14 February, Smith remained in Paris for less than a fortnight. Did he take notice during this short interval of one of the most pressing topics of public controversy at the time?

To be continued …

Note: Following my introduction (see my previous post), the next part of my revised paper “Adam Smith in the City of Lights”explains how Smith found himself in Paris in February 1764.

The road to Paris

Qu’elle me semblait la plus belle et la plus charmante de toutes les villes barbares. (Sorbière 1660, p. 574)

She [Paris] appears to me the most beautiful and charming of barbarian cities. (my translation)

Why did Adam Smith travel to Paris in early 1764? The second-largest capital in 18th-century Europe (after London), the City of Light boasted a comprehensive system of street lamps as well as many magnificent public spaces, including the Champs-Élysées, “la plus belle avenue du monde” (Hermant 1856, p. 226); the Church of Sainte-Geneviève, which would later become the Panthéon, the final resting place of such literary giants as Rousseau and Voltaire; and the Place de la Concorde, where one monarch was celebrated with a statue and another was put to death by a revolutionary tribunal. Finding himself in this magnificent European capital for the first time on 13 February 1764, Adam Smith had a powerful patron, British politician Charles Townshend, to thank for this chapter in his life, for the doors of this great city were first opened to Smith by Townshend in 1759. It was in that year that Smith published his first magnum opus, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, and first came to Townshend’s attention.

Townshend was a prominent politician who, four years earlier, had married into the British aristocracy when he wed a wealthy heiress, Caroline Campbell, the eldest daughter of the second Duke of Argyll and the widow of Francis, Lord Dalkeith, the eldest son of the second Duke of Buccleuch. Townshend thus became stepfather to Lady Dalkeith’s three surviving children, two boys and a girl: Henry Scott (1746–1812), Hew Campbell Scott (1747–1766), and Frances Scott (1750–1817). (See Alcouffe & Massot-Bordenave 2020, p. 33.) The eldest child, Henry (whose portrait is pictured below), was heir to the title of “Duke of Buccleuch”. A direct descendant of King Charles II of England and King Henry IV of France, Duke Henry was born into one of the wealthiest and most prestigious families in Scotland. Moreover, upon reaching the age of majority in September of 1767, Duke Henry would become one of Scotland’s largest landowners.

For his part, Charles Townshend was contemplating sending Henry to the continent upon the completion of his stepson’s studies at Eton (see, e.g., Hume’s 12 April 1759 letter to Smith; Letter #31). At the time, the “grand tour” was a rite of passage for the sons of elite British families, “the ‘crown’ of [their] education” (Cohen 2001, p. 129). Smith himself describes this aristocratic custom in Book V of The Wealth of Nations (Smith 1981, Glasgow edition, p. 773 (¶36)) as follows:

In England it becomes every day more and more the custom to send young people to travel in foreign countries immediately upon their leaving school, and without sending them to any university. Our young people, it is said, generally return home much improved by their travels. A young man who goes abroad at seventeen or eighteen, and returns home at one and twenty, returns three or four years older than he was when he went abroad ….

At some point in the summer of 1759, Townshend travelled to Scotland and met with Smith personally in Glasgow to discuss his appointment as Henry’s private tutor and guardian during his Grand Tour. (See Smith’s 17 September 1759 letter to Townshend (Letter #39, reprinted in Mossner & Ross, 1987), where Smith writes, “I had the pleasure of seeing you at Glasgow.”) After meeting with Townshend in Glasgow in the summer of 1759, Smith then drew up a list of fifty-three books for the future Duke to study. (Alcouffe & Massot-Bordenave 2020, p. 38.) Among Smith’s reading list were all the classics of ancient Greek and Roman literature, including Homer, Sophocles, and Virgil. (See Letter #41, note 2, reprinted in Mossner & Ross, 1987.)

Although Smith had already agreed in principle to accept the appointment as Henry’s tutor, in a letter to Smith dated 25 October 1763 (Letter #76), Townshend gives Smith an opportunity to back out of their arrangement:

The time now drawing near when the Duke of Buccleugh intends to go abroad, I take the liberty of renewing the subject to you: that if you should still have the same disposition to travel with him I may have the satisfaction of informing Lady Dalkeith and His Grace of it, and of congratulating them upon an event which I know that they, as well as myself, have so much at heart. The Duke is now at Eton: He will remain there until Christmass. He will then spend some short time in London, that he may be presented at Court, and not pass instantaneously from school to a foreign country; but it were to be wished He should not be long in Town, exposed to the habits and companions of London, before his mind has been more formed and better guarded by education and experience.

By the time Smith had received Townshend’s letter, the 1763/64 academic year at Glasgow University had already begun. As a result, Smith would have to either politely decline Townshend’s offer or take a leave of absence from his professorship at Glasgow University. In the event, Smith accepted the offer but tried to postpone the date of departure until after the end of the academic year. In a letter dated 12 December 1759 to his friend David Hume (Letter #78), Smith reports:

The day before I received your last letter I had the honour of a letter from Charles Townshend, renewing in the most obliging manner his former proposal that I should travel with the Duke of Buccleugh, and informing me that his Grace was to leave Eton at Christmas, and would go abroad very soon after that. I accepted the proposal, but at the same time expressed to Mr Townshend the difficulties I should have in leaving the University before the beginning of April, and begged to know if my attendance upon his Grace would be necessary before that time. I have yet received no answer to that letter, which, I suppose, is owing to this, that his Grace is not yet come from Eton, and that nothing is yet settled with regard to the time of his going abroad. I delayed answering your letter till I should be able to inform you at what time I should have the pleasure of seeing you.

Although the remaining correspondence between Smith and Townshend has not survived, Townshend must have rejected any postponement of Duke Henry’s Grand Tour, for by all accounts (see, e.g., Rae 1895, p. 174; Phillipson 2010, p. 183; Ross 2010, p. 210) Smith was in London by mid-January 1764, and he and the young Henry departed for the coast of France soon thereafter.

Alas, I did not know Professor Schauer personally, but I am a huge fan of his work. (See also the three books by Schauer recommended below.)