It would appear from the Abbe’s first letter that Smith had either brought with him from Paris an introduction to the Archbishop of Toulouse, or that Hume had asked his cousin to give him one.  This Archbishop—­who was so desirous to make Hume’s acquaintance—­was the celebrated Lomenie de Brienne, afterwards Cardinal and Minister of France, who was thought at this time, Walpole says, to be the ablest man in the Gallican Church, and was pronounced by Hume to be the only man in France capable of restoring the greatness of the kingdom.  When he obtained the opportunity he signally falsified Hume’s prognostication, and did much to precipitate the Revolution by his incapacity.  Smith must no doubt have met him occasionally during his protracted sojourn at Toulouse, though we have no evidence that he did, and the Archbishop was rather notorious for his absence from his see.  If he did meet his Grace he would have found him as advanced an economist as himself, for having been a college friend of Turgot and Morellet at the Sorbonne, he became a strong advocate of their new economic principles, and succeeded in getting the principle of free trade in corn adopted by the States of Languedoc.  Whether they were personally acquainted or not, the Archbishop does not appear to have cherished any profound regard for Smith, for when he was Minister of France he refused his friend Morellet the trifling sum of a hundred francs, which the Abbe asked to pay for the printing of his translation of the Wealth of Nations.

During Smith’s first six months at Toulouse he does not seem to have seen the Archbishop, or to have seen much of anybody, as the following letter shows.  Indeed he found the place extremely dull, the life he led in Glasgow having been, he says, dissipation itself in comparison.  They had not received the letters of recommendation they had expected from the Duc de Choiseul, and for society they were as yet practically confined to the Abbe Colbert and the English residents.  For a diversion Smith contemplates an excursion to Bordeaux, and suggests a visit for a month from Sir James Macdonald, for the sake not only of his agreeable society, but of the service “his influence and example” would render the Duke.  Personally he had, to mitigate his solitude, taken a measure no less important than effectual—­he had begun to write a book—­the Wealth of Nations—­“to pass away the time.  You may believe I have very little to do.”

They had arrived in Toulouse on the 3rd or 4th of March, but it is the 5th of July before Smith thinks of writing Hume; at least the following letter reads as if it were the first since they parted:—­