prior probability

Who was the duchesse d’Enville, and what was Adam Smith’s relation to her? Thus far this week, Alain Alcouffe and I have explored this enigmatic relationship by surveying the secondary literature on Smith. But of all the works we have consulted during our months of scholarly research, it is a primary source that has caught our attention the most, a piece of correspondence that establishes a possible link between the Scottish philosopher and the French salonnière. (See generally Guerra-Pujol 2021, pp. 135-136.) This source is a personal letter addressed to Smith, dated 18 Sept 1766, from one “Grand Viccaire Eccossois,” who most likely was Seignelay Colbert de Castle-Hill (1736-1811), the Abbé Colbert (pictured above via Wikimedia Commons; ibid.).

Before proceeding to Colbert’s intriguing letter, it is worth explaining why Colbert is worth taking seriously, for he is a highly credible source. To the point, the Abbé Colbert became Adam Smith’s closest companion and confidant during Smith’s time in Toulouse (March 1764 to October 1765); in fact, he even travelled with Smith and Duke Henry to Bagnères, Bordeaux, and many other places in the South of France during this 18-month period (Alcouffe and Massot-Bordenave 2020, pp. 216–217; see also Rae 1895, p. 179). Colbert thus got to know Smith the man, not just Smith the scholar or man of letters. With these background facts in mind, one passage in particular in Colbert’s Sept. 1766 letter to Smith is especially tantalizing:

Et tu, Adam Smith, philosophe de Glasgow, heros et idole des high-broad Ladys, que fais tu, mon cher ami? Comment gouvernes tu La duchesse d’Anville [d’Enville] et Mad. de Boufflers, ou ton coeur est il toujours epris des charms de Mad. Nicol et des apparent apparens que laches de cette autre dame de Fife, que vous aimees tant? [National Archives of Scotland, GD224/2040/62/3, quoted in Alcouffe and Moore 2018, emphasis added]

In English:

And you, Adam Smith, Glasgow philosopher, high-broad Ladies’ hero and idol, what are you doing my dear friend? How do you govern the Duchess of Anville [d’Enville] and Madame de Boufflers, where your heart is always in love with Madame Nicol and with the attractions as apparent as hidden of this lady of Fife that you loved. [as translated in Alcouffe and Massot-Bordenave 2020, p. 260, emphasis added; for slightly different translations of Abbé Colbert’s letter of September 18, 1766, see Ross 2010, p. 227; Buchan 2006, p. 77; Mossner & Ross 1987, p. 111]

The jocular and intimate tone of this particular passage suggests camaraderie and close connections — or in the words of Alain Alcouffe and Philippe Massot-Bordenave (2020, p. 217), the letter “is probably a private correspondence between friends who have established trust” — but what does it mean? More specifically, why does Colbert refer to the duchesse d’Enville by name in this passage, and what does he really mean when he writes, “Comment gouvernes tu La duchesse d’Anville ….”? Did Smith and d’Enville fall in love? And if so, how did Colbert find out about Smith’s trysts or his sundry romantic attachments? Alas, these amorous secrets are buried with Smith, for the Scottish philosopher-economist insisted on the destruction of his private papers, manuscripts, and letters upon his death (cf. Guerra-Pujol 2021, p. 149).

Not all is lost, however. Building on the work of Guerra-Pujol (2021), Alain Alcouffe and I will present our own interpretation of Colbert’s curious letter in our next post …

Works cited

Alcouffe, Alain, and Andrew Moore. (2018) Smith’s Networks in Occitania—March 1764–October 1765. Presented at the 31st Annual Conference of Eighteenth- Century Scottish Studies Society, July 17–21, 2018 (Glasgow).

Alcouffe, Alain, and Philippe Massot-Bordenave. (2020) Adam Smith in Toulouse and Occitania: The Unknown Years. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Buchan, James. (2006) The Authentic Adam Smith: His Life and Ideas. New York: Norton.

Guerra-Pujol, F. E. (2021) Adam Smith in Love. Econ Journal Watch, Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 127–155.

Mossner, Ernest C., and Ian Simpson Ross, editors. (1987) The Correspondence of Adam Smith, 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Rae, John. (1895) Life of Adam Smith. London: Macmillan.

Ross, Ian Simpson. (2010) The Life of Adam Smith, 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Wikimedia Commons. (Not dated) File:Seignelay Colbert de Castlehill.jpg.

Who was the Duchesse d’Enville, and what was Adam Smith’s relation to her? Among other things, according to Smith’s biographer John Rae, she “was a woman of great ability”, a “devoted friend of Turgot”, as well as a highly-educated and consummate hostess, for the Scottish philosopher was a “steady guest” at her house during his sojourn in Geneva:

The Duchesse d’Enville, at whose house Smith seems to have been so steady a guest, was herself a Rochefoucauld by blood, a grand daughter of the famous author of the Maxims, and was a woman of great ability, who was popularly supposed to be the inspirer of all Turgot’s political and social ideas, the chief of the “three Maries” who were alleged to guide his doings. Stewart tells us that Smith used to speak with very particular pleasure and gratitude of the many civilities he received from this interesting woman and her son, and they seem on their part to have cherished the same lively recollection of him. When Adam Ferguson was in Paris in 1774 she asked him much about Smith, and often complained, says Ferguson in a letter to Smith himself, “of your French as she did of mine, but said that before you left Paris she had the happiness to learn your language.” After two and a half years’ residence in France, Smith seems then to have been just succeeding in making himself intelligible to the more intelligent inhabitants in their own language …. The young Due de la Rochefoucauld, who, like his mother, was a devoted friend of Turgot, became presently a declared disciple of Quesnay, and sat regularly with the rest of the economist sect at the economic dinners of Mirabeau, the “Friend of Man.” When Samuel Rogers met him in Paris shortly after the outbreak of the Revolution, he expressed to Rogers the highest admiration for Smith, then recently dead, of whom he had seen much in Paris as well as Geneva, and he had at one time begun to translate the Theory of Moral Sentiments into French, abandoning the task only when he found his work anticipated by the Abbe Blavet’s translation in 1774. The only surviving memorial of their intercourse is a letter from the Duke … and in which he begs Smith to modify the opinion pronounced in the Theory on the writer’s ancestor, the author of the Maxims. (Rae 1895, pp. 192-193, footnote omitted.)

The reference to Stewart in the passage above is to Professor Dugald Stewart (pictured below), a Scottish philosopher and mathematician who not only knew Adam Smith personally; he also wrote the very first biography of the philosopher-economist. [See Dugald Stewart, “Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith, LL.D.”, in W. P. D. Wightman, editor, Essays on Philosophical Subjects, Liberty Fund (1982), pp. 263-351, available here.] But the only thing Stewart has to say about the duchesse’s relationship to Smith is this: “From Madam d’Anville, the respectable mother of the late excellent and much lamented Duke of La Rochefoucauld, he [Smith] received many attentions, which he always recollected with particular gratitude.” (Stewart 1982, p. 303, footnote omitted.)

What did these “many attentions” that Smith received from the Duchesse d’Enville consist of? Could some of these attentions have been romantic or amorous in nature? According to one historical source — a primary source no less — this intriguing possibility cannot be dismissed out of hand! Alain Alcouffe and I will introduce this source in our next post …

Who was the duchesse d’Enville, and what was Adam Smith’s relation to her? The one scholar who has the most to say about these enigmas is the late great historian Ian Simpson Ross. [See I. S. Ross, The Life of Adam Smith, Oxford U Press, 2nd edition (2010).] Among other things, Ross writes:

Genevan society was opened to Smith through Dr Théodore Tronchin, whose son Francois Louis had been a pupil in Glasgow from 1761 to 1763, and about whose education the father and Smith corresponded …. One of Tronchin’s patients at this time was the comtesse Rohan Chabot, who was accompanied in Geneva by her brother the duc de La Rochefoucauld and their mother, the duchesse d’Enville. This great lady of France was passionately interested in the newest advances in the sciences and humanities, and the range of possibilities for human improvement. The friend and confidante of Turgot, Intendant of Limoges from 1761, she encouraged him to study the Physiocratic writers carefully (Ruwet et al., 1976). Thus she is a possible channel for Smith’s awareness of the teaching and personalities of the Physiocrats, in addition to what he may have learned from articles by Quesnay and Turgot in the Encyclopédie, such as those on Epingle, Fermiers, Grain, and Foires et Marchés, in the volumes he bought for Glasgow University Library in 1759 (Ross, 1984a: 178-9, 183). [Ross 2010, p. 221]

According to Ross, the duchesse d’Enville also introduced Smith to many other Enlightenment intellectuals in addition to Turgot, including the the mathematician 2nd Earl Stanhope, the naturalist Charles Bonnet, and the physicist Georges-Louis Le Sage:

It was in the circle of the duchesse d’Enville that Smith met the mathematician 2nd Earl Stanhope. Smith came to be on such good terms with him that he acted as a go-between in 1774, when Stanhope secured the services of Adam Ferguson as travelling tutor to his ward, Lord Chesterfield (Corr. Nos. 138-42, also app. E, c-0; Raphael et al., 1990; Raphael, 1994). Genevan scientists with philosophical interests whom Smith met in the d’Enville circle were the naturalist, Charles Bonnet (1720-93), and the mathematical physicist, Georges-Louis Le Sage (1724-1803). [Ross 2010, p. 221]

Furthermore, Ross reports that “Smith attended the salons of the duchesse d’Enville in Paris, also those of Julie de L’Espinasse, a little further off, in rooms at No. 6 rue Saint Dominique, where d’Alembert was installed…. There was the difficulty that Smith spoke French very badly, a point that Mme d’Enville corroborated, though she claimed that she had learned English before Smith left Paris (Corr. No. 142).” [Ross 2010, p. 223] Although Ross cites a number of sources in support of his observations, he fails to mention in these passages his scholarly precursor John Rae, who wrote the most complete account of Smith’s sojourn in Switzerland. So, what does Rae have to say about about Adam Smith and the Duchesse d’Enville? (To be continued…)

Who was the duchesse d’Enville, and what was Adam Smith’s relation to her? In his excellent contribution to the secondary literature on the Scottish philosopher-economist [see “Adam Smith in Geneva” in Valérie Cossy, Béla Kapossy, & Richard Whatmore, editors, Genève, lieu d’Angleterre, Slatkine (2009), pp. 153-167], historian Brian Bonnyman describes the duchesse’s network of “visiting and local literati” in Geneva and reports that Smith was introduced to her circle during his time in the Swiss city-state:

… Smith was introduced to the circle of the duchesse d’Enville, who had accompanied her daughter, the comtesse Rohan-Chabot, to Geneva to be treated by Tronchin. As a keen advocate of the new learning in the sciences and literature, d’Enville had gathered round her both visiting and local literati, with several of whom Smith was to make lasting friendships. These included the eminent English mathematician Philip Stanhope, the 2d Earl of Stanhope, who had edited the works of Smith’s old professor at Glasgow, Robert Simson, and whom Smith would later help with the arrangements for the appointment of a tutor to his charge, the Earl of Chester. Also frequenting d’Enville’s circle were the natural philosopher Charles Bonnet, who would later refer to Smith as « the sage of Glasgow », and the physicist Georges-Louis Le Sage, both of whom were Professors at the University of Geneva. It has also been suggested by Smith’s latest biographer that the duchesse d’Enville, as a keen advocate of Physiocratic thought, and as a close friend of Turgot, may have been an important conduit for Smith’s awareness of the French economists ideas. And certainly, Smith would meet the main proponents of the Physiocratic « school » at the duchess’s salon in Paris, which he would frequent later during his tour. (Bonnyman 2009, p. 164, footnotes omitted.)

The reference to “Smith’s latest biographer” in the passage above is to the late great historian Ian Simpson Ross (1930-2015), who as it happens has a lot to say about the duchesse d’Enville, for she is mentioned by name no less than 10 times in his meticulous and sweeping biography of Adam Smith … (To be continued)

Today, 6 January, not only marks the end of my fall sabbatical and my return to teaching; it is also Three Kings Day — the feast day of the Epiphany! (PS: The word “epiphany” is derived from the Greek ἐπιφάνεια, epiphaneia.)

Why not celebrate the end of Christmastide — as well as the end of my sabbatical — with a classic Cuban anthem performed by Sheila E., featuring Gloria Estefan & Mimy Succar?

Among other things, I have been reading James McPherson’s biography of Abraham Lincoln; Amos Towles’ beautiful historical fiction novel A Gentleman in Moscow; Ian Johnston’s translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses; and Stephen Greenblatt’s The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, an erudite but entertaining chronicle of the rediscovery of the last surviving copy of an ancient Roman philosophical manuscript.

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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auld_Lang_Syne

PS: Alain Alcouffe and I will resume our series on Adam Smith in Switzerland in our next post; in the meantime, we wish our loyal readers a happy, healthy, and prosperous new year.