From 1750–1777, Madame Geoffrin played host to many of the most influential Philosophes and Encyclopédistes of her time.
A follower of the Philosophes, Brissot's anti-slavery efforts were also due to his exposure to humanitarian activities on both sides of the Atlantic.
In 1473 the knight Lewis de Bretaylle had lent him a French manuscript, Les ditz moraulx des philosophes by Jehan or Guillaume de Thionville, whose turn-of-the-fifteenth-century French translation of a Latin work has a lineage that derives from an Arabic text.