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Book, page 21 / 107 "Il fait le bien sans espoir de recompense, il est plus vertueux, plus desinteresse que nous." There are many recorded instances of Holbach's gracious benevolence. As he said to Helvetius, "Vous etes brouille avec tous ceux que vous avez oblige, mais j'ai garde tous mes amis." Holbach had the faculty of attaching people to him. Diderot tells how at the Salon of 1753 after Holbach had bought Oudry's famous picture, all the collectors who had passed it by came to him and offered him twice what he paid for it. Holbach went to find the artist to ask him permission to cede the picture to his profit, but Oudry refused, saying that he was only too happy that his best work belonged to the man who was the first to appreciate it. Instances of Holbach's liberality to Kohant, a poor musician, and to Suard, a poor literary man, are to be found in the pages of Diderot and Meister, and his constant generosity to his friends is a commonplace in their Memoirs and Correspondence. Only Rousseau was ungrateful enough to complain that Holbach's free-handed gifts insulted his poverty. His kindness to Lagrange, a young literary man whom he rescued from want, has been well told by M. Naigeon in the preface to the works of Lagrange (p. xviii). But perhaps the most touching instances of Holbach's benevolence are his relations with the peasants of Contrexeville, one of which was published in the _Journal de Lecture_, 1775, the other in an anonymous letter to the _Journal de Paris_, Feb. 12, 1789. The first concerns the reconciliation of two old peasants who, not wanting to go to court, brought their differences to their respected friend for a settlement. Nothing is more simple and beautiful than this homely tale as told in a letter of Holbach's to a friend of his. The second, which John Wilkes said ought to be written in letters of gold, deserves to be reproduced as a whole. L'eloge funebre que M. Naigeon a consacre a la memoire de M. le Baron d'Holbach suffit pour donner une idee juste de ses lumieres, mais le hasard m'a mis a portee de les juger encore mieux. J'ai vu M. le Baron d'Holbach dans deux voyages que j'ai faits aux eaux de Contrexeville. S'occuper de sa souffrance et de sa guerison, c'est le soin de chaque malade. M. le Baron d'Holbach devenait le medecin, l'ami, le consolateur de quiconque venait aux eaux et il semblait bien moins occupe de ses infirmites que de celles des autres. Lorsque des malades indigens manquaient de secours, ou pecuniaires ou curatifs, il
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