One day at d’Holbach’s, the conversation on the Deity became so outrageous, that, with every man’s hand against him, Galiani rose. ‘Messieurs les Philosophes,’ says he, ‘you go too fast. If I were the Pope, I should hand you over to the Inquisition; if the King, to the Bastille. But as I have the good luck to be neither, I shall come to dinner next Thursday, and you shall listen to me as patiently as I have listened to you.’
Thursday came. After dinner and coffee, the Abbé takes an armchair, crosses his legs, removes his wig (the night being sultry), and, with those lively gesticulations which he can no more help than he can help breathing, tells a story.
‘Please suppose, gentlemen, that one of you, who is the most convinced that this world is the result of chance, happens to be playing at dice, not in a gambling hell but in one of the best houses in Paris. His adversary, casting one, two, three, four—many times—always throws number six. After the game has gone on a little while, my friend Diderot, we will say, who is losing his money, will certainly call out, “The dice are cogged! This is some swindlers’ den!” What, philosopher, what? Because ten or twelve throws of dice come out of the box so that you lose half a dozen francs, you are firmly convinced that this is the result of a clever design, an artificial combination, a complicated roguery; and yet, seeing in the universe a mighty number of combinations a thousand times more difficult, more complicated, and more useful, you do not suspect that Nature’s dice are also cogged, and that above there is a great Arranger?’
It was a most happy illustration, if not a convincing argument. But the age which was swayed by the eloquence of Rousseau always preferred an example to a reason: while the class who laughed later at ‘The Marriage of Figaro’ might certainly be counted on to enjoy a joke against itself.
There was a fourth salon where Galiani was much more at home than at Grandval, or under the prim wings of Madame Necker or the motherly feathers of Madame Geoffrin. At Madame d’Épinay’s alone, he was perfectly natural, his rollicking, buffooning, all-daring self, able, as only a Southerner is able, to make himself entirely ridiculous without being at all contemptible.
Madame d’Épinay was that clever wife of a ruined Farmer General, who had been petted by Rousseau, and played with by Voltaire. Madame d’Houdetot was her sister-in-law; Diderot was her constant associate; Grimm was her lover; and Galiani became, and remained for twenty years, her most sincere and admiring friend.
A Platonic friendship is perhaps only possible when one or other of the Platonists is in love with a third person. Grimm, with his well-regulated head and heart, was not only perfectly able to keep a fickle woman true to him, but himself to retain an honest regard for the Abbé and to use his opinions and his wit for the ‘Literary Correspondence.’
Madame d’Épinay’s salon was of all salons the most thoroughly characteristic of the time and the people. No one had any duty but to amuse himself. From early in the morning, a few charming and accomplished women, who always relegated their children to servants, their stupid husbands to oblivion, and their households to chance, talked delightfully over their embroidery (with which the fashion demanded they should toy) to men, of whom among many astounding characteristics, not the least astounding is their prodigious idleness coupled with their prodigious literary production.
Galiani himself was the greatest attraction Madame d’Épinay’s circle could claim. When he came in on a dripping country afternoon at La Chevrette, or in some murky winter twilight in Paris, there came with him, said Diderot, light, brightness, gaiety, folly, mirth—everything which makes one forget the cares of life. Mademoiselle d’Ette, who was at once her hostess’s worst and dearest friend, looked up from her embroidery frame with her stealthy eyes aglow to welcome an acquisition so delightful. Madame d’Épinay was, as ever, gay, caressing, insouciante. Diderot was in ecstasies (he was always in an ecstasy about something) at the little Italian’s arrival. He was a perfect treasure on a wet day! If the toy-shops made Galianis, everybody would buy one!
The Abbé takes his seat, cross-legged as usual, and from that head which was ‘a library of anecdotes,’ reels out a dozen stories, acting them all with an inimitable liveliness, while his hearers laugh till they cry.