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