Among the well known women of the century Holbach was most intimate with Mme. d'Epinay, who became a very good friend of Mme. Holbach's and was present at the birth of her first son, and, in her will, left her a portrait by Rembrandt. He was also a friend of Mme. Geoffrin, attended her salon, and knew Mlle. de Lespinasse, Mme. Houderot and most of the important women of the day.
There are excellent sources from which to form an estimate of this man whose house was the social centre of the century. Just after Holbach's death on January 21, 1789, Naigeon, his literary agent, who had lived on terms of the greatest intimacy with him for twenty-four years, wrote a long eulogy which filled the issue of the Journal de Paris for Feb. 9. There was another letter to the Journal on Feb. 12. Grimm's Correspondance Littéraire for March contains a long account of him by Meister, and there are other notices in contemporary memoirs such as Morellet's and Marmontel's. All these accounts agree in picturing him as the most admirable of men.
It must be remembered that Holbach always enjoyed what was held to be a considerable fortune in his day. From his estates in Westphalia he had a yearly income of 60,000 livres which he spent in entertaining. This freedom from economic pressure gave him leisure to devote his time to his chosen intellectual pursuits and to his friends. He was a universally learned man. He knew French, German, English, Italian and Latin extremely well and had a fine private library of about three thousand works often of several volumes each, in these languages and in Greek and Hebrew. The catalogue of this library was published by Debure in 1789. It would be difficult to imagine a more comprehensive and complete collection of its size. He had also a rich collection of drawings by the best masters, fine pictures of which he was a connoisseur, bronzes, marbles, porcelains and a natural history cabinet, so in vogue in those days, containing some very valuable specimens. He was one of the most learned men of his day in natural science, especially chemistry and mineralogy, and to his translations from the best German scientific works is largely due the spread of scientific learning in France in the eighteenth century. Holbach was also very widely read in English theology and philosophy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and derived his anti-theological inspiration from these two sources. To this vast fund of learning, he joined an extreme modesty and simplicity. He sought no academic honors, published all his works anonymously, and, had it not been for the pleasure he took in communicating his ideas to his friends, no one would have suspected his great erudition. He had an extraordinary memory and the reputation of never forgetting anything of interest. This plenitude of information, coupled with his easy and pleasant manner of talking, made his society much sought after. Naigeon said of him (in his preface to the works of Lagrange):
Personne n'était plus communicatif que M. le baron d'Holbach; personne ne prenait aux progrès de la raison un intérêt plus vif, plus sincère, et ne s'occupait avec plus de zèle et l'activité des moyens de les accélérer.
Également versé dans la plupart des matières sur lesquelles il importe le plus à des êtres raisonnables d'avoir une opinion arrêtée, M. le baron d'Holbach portait dans leur discussion un jugement sain, une logique sévère, et une analyse exacte et précise. Quelque fut l'objet de ses entretiens avec ses amis, ou même avec des indifférens, tels qu'en offrent plus ou moins toutes les sociétés; il inspirait sans effort à ceux qui l'écoutaient l'enthousiasme de l'art ou de la science dont il parlait; et on ne le quittait jamais sans regretter de n'avoir pas cultivé la branche particulière de connaissances qui avait fait le sujet de la conversation, sans désirer d'être plus instruit, plus éclairé, et surtout sans admirer la claret, la justesse de son esprit, et l'ordre dans lequel il savait présenter ses idées.
This virtue of communicativeness, of sociabilité, Holbach carried into all the relations of life. He was always glad to lend or give his books to anyone who could make use of them. "Je suis riche," he used to say, "mais je ne vois dans la fortune qu'un instrument de plus pour opérer le bien plus promptement et plus efficacement." In fact Holbach's whole principle of life and action was to increase the store of human well being. And he did this without any religious motive whatsoever. As Julie says of Wolmar in La Nouvelle Heloïse, "Il fait le bien sans espoir de récompense, il est plus vertueux, plus désintéressé que nous." There are many recorded instances of Holbach's gracious benevolence. As he said to Helvetius, "Vous êtes brouillé avec tous ceux que vous avez obligé, mais j'ai gardé tous mes amis." Holbach had the faculty of attaching people to him. Diderot tells how at the Salon of 1753 after Holbach had bought Oudry's famous picture, all the collectors who had passed it by came to him and offered him twice what he paid for it. Holbach went to find the artist to ask him permission to cede the picture to his profit, but Oudry refused, saying that he was only too happy that his best work belonged to the man who was the first to appreciate it. Instances of Holbach's liberality to Kohant, a poor musician, and to Suard, a poor literary man, are to be found in the pages of Diderot and Meister, and his constant generosity to his friends is a commonplace in their Memoirs and Correspondence. Only Rousseau was ungrateful enough to complain that Holbach's free-handed gifts insulted his poverty. His kindness to Lagrange, a young literary man whom he rescued from want, has been well told by M. Naigeon in the preface to the works of Lagrange (p. xviii).
But perhaps the most touching instances of Holbach's benevolence are his relations with the peasants of Contrexéville, one of which was published in the Journal de Lecture, 1775, the other in an anonymous letter to the Journal de Paris, Feb. 12, 1789. The first concerns the reconciliation of two old peasants who, not wanting to go to court, brought their differences to their respected friend for a settlement. Nothing is more simple and beautiful than this homely tale as told in a letter of Holbach's to a friend of his. The second, which John Wilkes said ought to be written in letters of gold, deserves to be reproduced as a whole.
L'éloge funèbre que M. Naigeon a consacré à la mémoire de M. le Baron d'Holbach suffit pour donner une idée juste de ses lumières, mais le hasard m'a mis à portée de les juger encore mieux. J'ai vu M. le Baron d'Holbach dans deux voyages que j'ai faits aux eaux de Contrexéville. S'occuper de sa souffrance et de sa guérison, c'est le soin de chaque malade. M. le Baron d'Holbach devenait le médecin, l'ami, le consolateur de quiconque venait aux eaux et il semblait bien moins occupé de ses infirmités que de celles des autres. Lorsque des malades indigens manquaient de secours, ou pécuniaires ou curatifs, il les leur procurait avec un plaisir qui lui faisait plus de bien que les eaux. Je me promenais un soir avec lui sur une hauteur couverte d'un massif de bois qui fait perspective de loin et près duquel s'élève un petit Hermitage. Là, demeure un cénobite qui n'a de revenu que les aumônes de ceux dont il reçoit les visites. Nous acquittâmes chacun notre dette hospitalière. En prenant congé de l'Hermite, M. le Baron d'Holbach me dit de le précéder un instant et qu'il allait me suivre. Je le précédai, et comme il ne me suivait pas je m'arrêtai, pour l'attendre sur un terte exhaussé d'où l'on découvre tout le pays. Je contemplais le canton que je dominais, plongé dans une douce rêverie. J'en fus tiré par des cris et je me retournai vers l'endroit d'òu ils partaient. Je vis M. le Baron d'Holbach environné d'une vieille femme et de deux villageois, l'un vieux comme elle et l'autre jeune. Tous trois, les larmes aux yeux, l'embrassaient hautement. Allez vous-en donc, s'écrait M. le Baron d'Holbach; laissez moi, on m'attend, ne me suivez pas, adieu; je reviendrai l'année prochaine. En me voyant arriver vers eux, les trois personnes reconnaissantes disparurent. Je lui demandai le sujet de tant de bénédictions. Ce jeune paysan que vous avez vu s'etait engagé, j'ai obtenu de son colonel sa liberté en payant les cents écus prescrits par l'ordonnance. Il est amoureux d'une jeune paysanne aussi pauvre que lui, je viens d'acheter pour eux un petit bien qui m'a coûté huit cent francs. Le vieux père est perclus, aux deux bras, de rhumatismes, je lui ai fourni trois boîtes du baume des Valdejeots, si estimé en ce pays-ci. La vieille mère est sujetté à des maux d'estomac, et je lui ai apporté un pot de confection d'hyacinthe. Ils travaillaient dans le champ, voisin du bois, je suis allé les voir tandis que vous marchiez en avant. Ils m'ont suivi malgré moi. Ne parlez de cela à personne. On dirait que je veux faire le généreux et le bon philosophe, mais je ne suis que humain, et mes charités sont la plus agréable dépense de mes voyages.
This humanity of Holbach's is the very keynote of his character and of his intellectual life as well. As M. Walferdin has said, the denial of the supernatural was for him the base of all virtue, and resting on this principle, he exemplified social qualities that do the greatest honor to human nature. He and Madame Holbach are the only conspicuous examples of conjugal fidelity and happiness among all the people that one has occasion to mention in a study of the intellectual and literary circles of the eighteenth century. They were devoted to each other, to their children and to their friends. Considering the traits of Holbach's character that have been cited, there can scarcely be two opinions in regard to completeness with which he realized his ideal of humanity and sociability. M. Naigeon has well summed up in a few words Holbach's relation to the only duties that he recognized, "He was a good husband, a good father and a good friend."