THE GRAND TOUR (1768-69) 97 



He denied the existence of real liberty anywhere either law or 

 princes always restricted it, and according as the restrictions 

 prevented people doing the things they wanted to, they thought 

 themselves free or slaves. The man who did not like to be shut 

 up by a lettre de cachet felt himself badly off in France ; the 

 man who wanted to keep a mistress found no liberty in Geneva. 

 In England, of all European States, there was least freedom less 

 even than in Turkey. Tyranny was the result of a conspiracy 

 of the more intelligent against the common herd ; a single genius 

 could not maintain a tyranny. 



Another pleasant evening in famous company is thus recorded : 



' Supped with Madame d'Epinay, who put us much at our ease 

 with Messieurs Crommelin [the Genevese Resident in Paris] and 

 Grimm ; delighted with Madame d'Epinay, who is amiable and natural. 

 M. Grimm has wit and experience ; he attacks the Government of his 

 country on privileges, exemptions, taxes, etc.' 



Grimm would not take de Saussure to Baron Holbach's 

 because 'attacks on religion formed there the only topic of 

 conversation.' The Abb Morellet, in his Memoires, confirms 

 this charge : ' On y disait des choses a faire cent f ois tomber le 

 tonnerre sur la maison, s'il tombait pour cela.' 



Madame Necker, now at the height of her prosperity as the 

 wife of the great banker and future Minister, at first affronted her 

 compatriot by receiving him somewhat coldly, and he heartily 

 vowed not to repeat the visit. ' Her head,' he writes, 'is turned ; 

 she frequents the great and the beaux esprits, she gives herself 

 ridiculous airs, all the world laughs at her, and most of all Mile. 

 Clairon, to whom, nevertheless, she makes advances because 

 she is in the height of the fashion.' It would seem as if 

 Madame Necker was slow to open the doors of her salon to 

 the three visitors from her own lake, while the young Genevese 

 patrician probably resented any appearance of airs in the 

 daughter of a Swiss minister, the Mile. Curchod whom Gibbon 

 had courted and then fled from. But a month later the coldness 



title of Dialogues on the Trade in Grain. Voltaire vowed that ' Plato and Moliere 

 must have combined to produce a book that was as amusing as the best of 

 romances and as instructive as the best of serious works.' Galiani was at one 

 time a frequent correspondent of Madame Necker. (See also Le Salon de Madame 

 Necker par le Comte d'Haussonville, Paris, 1888.) 



Q 



