 Grouchy’s discussion of punishment is clearly influenced by the writings of the Milanese criminologist Cesare Beccaria. Beccaria had already argued for the necessity of equal penalties for all as even privileges must rest on an equal respect for the law. His book On Crimes and Punishment published in 1764 was translated in French that same year and published with a lengthy commentary from Voltaire. Beccaria came to Paris and spent much of 1776 in Madame Helvetius’s salon in Auteuil. His influence was no doubt still present some years later when the Marquis de Condorcet, and their future brother-in-law Pierre-George Cabanis, and later Condorcet’s wife Sophie de Grouchy also became frequent visitors. This, as well as Condorcet’s close connection with Voltaire, and his own engagement at the time Beccaria’s book was published in penal reform, goes some way towards explaining Grouchy’s affinities with Beccaria’s claims. In her Letters on Sympathy, she argues that: