The more intimate meetings at his country estate of Grandval, near Paris, have been described in fascinating detail in Diderot's letters. The members of Holbach's circle, besides the assiduous Diderot, included Melchior von Grimm, Claude-Adrien Helvétius, d'Alembert, Rousseau, Nicolas-Antoine Boulanger, Étienne Bonnot de Condillac, Jacques-André Naigeon, Baron de l'Aulne Turgot, and Marquis de Condorcet. Holbach also counted among his acquaintances many foreigners, notably David Hume, Edward Gibbon, Adam Smith, Joseph Priestley, Horace Walpole, David Garrick, Laurence Sterne, Cesare Beccaria, and Benjamin Franklin.
Because he left neither a body of correspondence nor personal papers, Holbach's character must be pieced together from contemporary accounts. The composite picture credits him with an impressive erudition, an extremely methodical mind, a collector's interest in art, and with the qualities of affability, discreet generosity, modesty, loyalty to friends, and a taste for virtuous simplicity. Diderot's more private remarks diverge somewhat from this public image, disclosing that the baron, at least with those nearest him, had moments of moodiness, petulance, and gruffness. But these traits just provide a touch of humanity without essentially altering the picture of him as the virtuous atheist.
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