He was one of the most noted contributors to Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie, writing on etymology, physics and philosophy as well as economics. Condorcet was a protégé and long-term friend, while Voltaire became one of his main supporters, praising his translations from Virgil. Smith knew him from d’Holbach’s, became a close friend, and almost certainly owed some of his own ideas to conversations with him. Michel Turgot was his father, who as ‘mayor’ was responsible for a series of classic maps of Paris.