At Dover they were joined by Sir James Macdonald of Sleat, a young baronet who had been at Eton College with the Duke of Buccleugh, and who had been living in France almost right on since the re-establishment of peace.  Sir James was heir of the old Lords of the Isles, and son of the lady who, with her factor Kingsburgh, harboured Prince Charlie and Flora Macdonald in Skye; and he was himself then filling the world of letters in Paris and London alike with astonishment at the extent of his knowledge and the variety of his intellectual gifts.  Walpole, indeed, said that when he grew older he would choose to know less, but to Grimm he seemed the same marvel of parts as he seemed to Hume.  He accompanied Smith and the Duke to Paris, where they arrived (as we know from Smith’s letter to the Rector of Glasgow University) on the 13th of February.

In Paris they did not remain long—­not more than ten days at most, for it took at that period six days to go from Paris to Toulouse, and they were in Toulouse on the 4th of March.  Smith does not appear during this short stay in Paris to have made the personal acquaintance of any of the eminent men of letters whom he afterwards knew so well, for he never mentions any of them in his subsequent letters to Hume from Toulouse, though he occasionally mentions Englishmen whose acquaintance he first made at that time.  He probably could not as yet speak French, for even to the last he could only speak it very imperfectly.  Most of their time in Paris seems, therefore, to have been spent with Hume and Sir James Macdonald and Lord Beauchamp, who was Hume’s pupil and Sir James’s chief friend.  Paris, moreover, was merely a halting-place for the present; their immediate destination was Toulouse, at that time a favourite resort of the English.  It was the second city of the kingdom, and wore still much of the style of an ancient capital.  It was the seat of an archbishopric, of a university, of a parliament, of modern academies of science and art which made some ado with their annual Jeux Floraux, and the nobility of the province still had their town houses there, and lived in them all winter.  The society was more varied and refined than anywhere else in France out of Paris.

Among the English residents was a cousin of David Hume, who had entered the Gallican Church, and was then Vicar-General of the diocese of Toulouse, the Abbe Seignelay Colbert.  Smith brought a letter from Hume to the Abbe, and the Abbe writes Hume in reply on the 4th of March, thanking him for having introduced Smith, who, he says, appeared to be all that was said of him in the letter.  “He has only just arrived,” the Abbe proceeds, “and I have only seen him for an instant.  I am very sorry that they have not found the Archbishop here.  He went some six weeks ago to Montpellier, whence he will soon go to Paris.  He told me he had a great desire to make your acquaintance.  I fear that my long black cassock will frighten the Duke of Buccleugh,