L'Ile-Adam. That rural seat of princely magnificence and hospitality is a familiar name in the memoirs of the times; and particularly in those of Madame de Genlis. It is singular, indeed, that this lady never mentions Hume, though she appears to have been living in the castle at the time when he visited it. The Prince of Conti was in every way possessed of the external qualifications which, in the eyes of his countrymen, were then the proper ornaments of his high station. He was brave, a distinguished military leader, generous, extravagant, gallant, and a lover of literature and the arts.[221:1] There was probably little in such a character to rival a Turgot, or a D'Alembert in Hume's esteem; but his intercourse with this prince, as with De Rohan, De Choiseul, and others, would be of a more limited and formal character.[221:2]
His influence with courtiers and statesmen, however, appears to have been considerable. In the letters addressed to him there are several instances where French people solicit his interposition with the great: thus, Madame Helvétius desires his good offices to procure an abbaye for her friend and neighbour the Abbé "Macdonalt," of an illustrious Irish family.[222:1] One lady, seeking ecclesiastical patronage, tells him that the clergy will have more pleasure in doing him a favour than in performing the functions of their office!
Hume has thus recorded in his "own life" the impression left on him by his reception in Paris:—"Those who have not seen the strange effects of modes, will never imagine the reception I met with at Paris, from men and women of all ranks and stations. The more I resiled from their excessive civilities, the more I was loaded with them. There is, however, a real satisfaction in living at Paris; from the great number of sensible, knowing, and polite company with which that city abounds above all places in the universe. I thought once of settling there for life." If he thought that he could have taken up his residence in Paris, and preserved for the remainder of his days the fresh bloom of his reputation, he was undoubtedly mistaken; but, dazzled as he in some measure was, we can see in his correspondence that he estimated the sensation he made pretty nearly at its just value. In the circle of toys, seized and discarded, by a giddy fashionable crowd, philosophy will have its turn, as well as poodles, parrots, tulips, monkeys, cafés, and black pages. It had been so a century earlier, when the most abstruse works
of Des Cartes had been the ornament of every fashionable lady's toilette; and now the wheel had revolved and philosophy was again in vogue.
A second time we have Lord Charlemont affording us a passing sketch of Hume. Having had an opportunity of witnessing the philosopher's reception in France, he says:—
"From what has been already said of him, it is apparent that his conversation to strangers, and particularly to Frenchmen, could be little delightful, and still more particularly, one would suppose, to French women: and yet no lady's toilette was complete without Hume's attendance. At the opera his broad unmeaning face was usually seen entre deux jolis minois. The ladies in France gave the ton, and the ton was deism: a species of philosophy ill suited to the softer sex, in whose delicate frame weakness is interesting, and timidity a charm. . . . . How my friend Hume was able to endure the encounter of these French female Titans, I know not. In England, either his philosophic pride or his conviction that infidelity was ill suited to women, made him perfectly averse from the initiation of ladies into the mysteries of his doctrine."[223:1]
The same characteristics are recorded by Grimm.[223:2] We have his position still more vividly painted by Madame d'Epinay, according to whom he must have undergone not a small portion of the martyrdom of lionism. One of the "rages" of the day was the holding of cafés, or giving entertainments in private
houses, according to the arrangements and etiquette of a public café. Among the amusements of the evening were pantomimes, and acted tableaux. In these it was necessary that Hume should take a rôle, and as he was always willing to conform to established regulations, we find him seated as a sultan between two obdurate beauties, intending to strike his bosom, but aiming the blows at le ventre, and accompanying his acting with characteristic exclamations.[224:1]
Hume's popularity in Paris appears to have somewhat disturbed Horace Walpole's equanimity. He was too good an artist to be very angry, or to express himself in terms of aggravated bitterness; but it is clear from
occasional notices, that, notwithstanding his professed admiration of Scotsmen, it displeased him to find Hume the Scotsman sitting at the king's gate. Writing to Lady Hervey on 14th Sept. 1765, he says, "Mr. Hume, that is the mode, asked much about your ladyship."[225:1] Then to Montague, on the 22d of the same month, and in allusion to the conversation of the dinner-table in Paris: