honoraire de son hotel, intendant de justice, police, et finances
de la generalite de Tours," who lived in rue Saint Dominique,
paroisse Saint-Sulpice. There was in Holbach's household for a
long time an old Scotch surgeon, a homeless, misanthropic old fellow
by the name of Hope, of whom Diderot gives a most interesting
account. [14:16] These are the only names we have of the personnel
of Holbach's household. His town house was in the rue Royale, butte
Saint-Roch. It was here that for an almost unbroken period of forty
years he gave his Sunday and Thursday dinners. The latter day was
known to the more intimate set of encyclopedists as the _jour du
synagogue_. Here the _eglise philosophique_ met regularly to discuss
its doctrines and publish its propaganda of radicalism.

Holbach had a very pleasant country seat, the chateau of Grandval,
now in the arrondisement of Boissy St. Leger at Sucy-en-Brie. It
is pleasantly situated in the valley of a little stream, the Morbra,
which flows into the Marne. The property was really the estate of
Mme. d'Aine who lived with the Holbachs. Here the family and their
numerous guests passed the late summer and fall. Here Diderot spent
weeks at a time working on the Encyclopedia, dining, and walking on
the steep slopes of the Marne with congenial companions. To him we
are indebted for our intimate knowledge of Grandval and its inhabitants,
their slightest doings and conversations; and as Danou has well said,
if we were to wish ourselves back in any past age we should choose
with many others the mid-eighteenth century and the charming society
of Paris and Grandval. [14:17]

Holbach's life, in common with that of most philosophers, offers no
events, except that he came near being killed in the crush and riot
in the rue Royale that followed the fire at the Dauphin's wedding in