“La grande varieté du goût”: David Hume à Paris

Paris, Reims and La Flèche in the 30s. Paris in 1748. Again, Paris in the 60s. Hume is always looking at himself in the French mirror: the first philosophical readings, the French translations of his own writings (in 1761 the French translation of the Philosophical Essay earns him a place in the Index Librorum Prohibitorum), the Embassy, the Court, the Great Ladies (and Madame de Boufflers) and the Philosophes (and Rousseau). In 1745 Hume first declares the intention to retire to the south of France. A few months before dying, in his autobiography, he remembers the “real satisfaction” in living at Paris: “I thought once of settling there for life”. Especially because in Paris, he writes, they “consider me as one of the greatest geniuses in the world”. In this piece we account for Hume’s life, places and connections (Diderot, d’Holbach and Sterne) as philosopher-Secretary to the Embassy of Lord Hertford in 1763-1766. We also account for the differences between Hume and his French philosophical friends on matters of atheism and suicide.