There is an irresistible fascination in the study of the men and
women of the eighteenth century of France and England; they, their
manners and customs, have disappeared for ever, but Gainsborough's
gracious women, Sir Joshua Reynolds's charming types, and Romney's
sensitive heads, have in England immortalised the reign of beauty of
this period; in France the elegance and grace of the time are shown
in the canvases of Greuze, Vanloo, and Fragonard, in the cupids and
doves and garlands which adorned the interiors of Mme. de Pompadour.

It was a time of great intellectual development and progress in both
countries. It was the epoch of the salons, of the philosophers and
encyclopaedists, of a brilliant society whose decadence was hidden
in a garb of seductive gaiety, its egotism and materialism in a
magnificent apparelling of wit and learning. Literary standing in
France at once gave the entree to society of the highest rank and to
circles the most exclusive. David Hume, whose reputation as
philosopher and historian, had been already established there, was
received with enthusiasm when he accompanied Lord Hertford to Paris
as Secretary of Embassy, though his manner, dress, and speech were
awkward and uncouth; but his good-humoured simplicity was accepted
and appreciated as was his learning. He had begun in England a
correspondence with the Comtesse de Boufflers, he was made welcome
too in the salons of Mme. Geoffrin and of Mile, de Lespinasse, and
he soon became intimate with d'Alembert and Turgot. His reception
was no less cordial at court, where the children of the Dauphin met
him, prepared with polite little speeches about his works. He had
such admiration for Rousseau that he brought him to England,
assisting him there in spite of Horace Walpole's ill-natured jest on
the flight of the susceptible French philosopher.