Early in life introduced into the salons of Paris, he readily caught their spirit, and soon obtained the friendship of the leading encyclopaedists and philosophers of scientific and historical fame; he was on intimate terms with many well known in letters and in the arts. The celebrated wits of both sexes, the beauties, the belles, courted his society; the charm of their brilliant conversation, their versatile accomplishments, and their winning manners were fascinating and irresistible. These divinities imagined they moved and had their being in a sublimated atmosphere far above and beyond the aspiration of common mortals; their sentiments breathed of perfect philanthropy, expressed in terms and in tenderness befitting persons divinely inspired. Every allurement that could inspire the imagination, every blandishment entrancing the senses, every grace, talent, every ornament which could enhance the form or ennoble the intellect, was cultivated and appreciated. Luxury in dress, in gems, in furniture, in equipage, in banquets, in music, in flowers, in painting, in frescoes, in sculpture, was displayed with excess of prodigality which vied with the purest taste. An ambrosial flavor of expression abounded in a common salutation; a delicate oriental perfume seemed to permeate every compliment, nor was any remark deemed appropriate unless it contained a compliment; eloquence was discarded because it was tinctured with too much external exhibition of feeling; it, moreover, took up too much precious time. { 93} But a higher art was attained in its stead--the art of epigrammatical brevity, to communicate in a half-line what an oration could not teach in a half-hour; nor was an epigram deemed perfect when its wit was rare and its sense profound, unless it tended to a sneer at religion or goodness in mankind, or told a scandalous lie.
The pervading object, the avowed purpose in this society, was to seek pleasure, to declaim against abuses in institutions, moral, political, and Christian, in the public at large, in domestic habits and manners, in the state, and in the church. But these refined creatures were not good, nor moral, nor pure, nor Christians themselves; they made no pretensions to any of these virtues; they were not proselyting reformers; they were in no sense radicals; they made no active exertions to pull down, neither did they aim to build up, nor to improve the world, but were content to deplore human evils and to rail at everybody. If a choice had been given to them to abolish institutions, or only to remove their abuses incident to all things of human creation, they would have preferred to abolish the institutions, provided the abuses were permitted to remain intact. But as they could not be rid of the beneficial advantages of the substance without the banishment of the evil shadow, they were content to tolerate the nuisance of what was a blessing to the nation, in order to possess for themselves the parts pernicious which were of sinful, comfortable consideration in their sight. They supposed their mission fulfilled when they talked and did nothing. If one of the coterie had turned patriot and aspired to usefulness, he would have been deemed a harmless traitor, and commiserated for the folly of his desertion. His efforts would have subjected him to their lamenting sympathy, their smiling mockery, their laconic brevities, which, although seemingly soothing, would be as scorching as they were short. Because he had accomplished something commendable or attempted its accomplishment, they would decide he had fallen from grace, had rendered himself liable to their biting condolence, and laid himself open to the piercing shafts of their pity. Voltaire, still lingering in his senility as head and chief priest of this highly refined and deeply depraved community, had sent forth a parting rescript to the faithful in their infidelity, that "one who has done nothing is possessed of a terrible advantage; but he must not abuse it."