He now devoted himself principally to economic studies, taking no part in the court intrigues which were perpetually going on around him. Around 1750 he became acquainted with Jacques C. M. V. de Gournay (1712–1759), who was also an earnest inquirer in the economic field; and round these two distinguished men was gradually formed the philosophic sect of the Économistes, or, as for distinction's sake they were afterwards called, the Physiocrates. The most remarkable men in this group of disciples were the elder Mirabeau (author of "L'Ami des hommes", 1756–60, and "Philosophie rurale", 1763), Nicolas Baudeau ("Introduction a la philosophie économique", 1771), Guillaume-François Le Trosne ("De l'ordre social", 1777), André Morellet (best known by his controversy with Galiani on the freedom of the grain trade during the Flour War), Lemercier de La Rivière, and du Pont de Nemours. Adam Smith, during his stay on the continent with the young Duke of Buccleuch in 1764–1766, spent some time in Paris, where he made the acquaintance of Quesnay and some of his followers; he paid a high tribute to their scientific services in his "Wealth of Nations".