Women And Literary Salons
Held by women, the first literary salons appear in the sixteenth century and thrive in the next century. The protection and support for women who kept them have contributed to major projects of importance to the history of thought, presiding over the genesis of preciousness or the creation of the Encyclopedia in XVIII century. In many ways, the prodigious fertility outcome of informal intellectual salons happily supports the comparison with the French Academy , where women will be allowed only three and a half centuries after its creation.
Summary |
Slightly behind the appearance of these aristocrats, and modern intellectual who upset the social conventions of their times appear intellectual who open the greatest minds of their time mingling their salons politicians, scholars and scientists of both sexes and all terms. Educated and most of the time, writers themselves, they maintain a voluminous correspondence with all of the time that Europe could count open minds: the only correspondence Deffand Mary's account, for example, letters 1400. The most famous of these matches is that of Marie de Sevigne. These meetings rather numerous elite minds or persons connected with the "polite society" that existed until the early nineteenth century , formed many centers, homes whose literary knowledge is essential to understand in detail nuances and history of literature. As the literary salons were almost always headed by women, the story of the first can be considered independently of seconds. It is in the room the women distinguished by the spirit, taste and tact that has grown accustomed to the conversation and was born the art of conversation characteristic of French society. These shows where we talked of the beautiful things in general, and especially things of the mind exercised a considerable influence on the manners and literature.
The first literary salon was that of the Hotel de Rambouillet , whose formation dates back to 1608 and lasted until the death of his grandmother, Catherine de Rambouillet , called " Arthenice "in 1659. Other meetings less famous but nonetheless worthy of being mentioned, existed in the seventeenth century , not counting the streets, reduced and alcoves, where Precious Gemstone and tried to imitate the Hotel de Rambouillet.
Under Louis XIII , we find the salon Marie Bruneau des Loges , as his admirers called the Tenth Muse , whose Conrart said:
"She has been honored, visited and entertained all of the most significant, not excepting the greatest princes and princesses of the most illustrious ... All seemed muses reside under its protection or pay tribute to him and his house was a regular academy. "
Balzac , Malherbe , Beautru, mostly frequented this house, and among the great people who showed their estimated Marie Bruneau des Loges , we noticed the King of Sweden, Duke of Orleans and the Duke of Weimar.
Towards the middle of the seventeenth century , the salon of Madeleine Scuderi who rose to prominence. Disorders of two Frondes having dispersed largely accustomed to the Hotel de Rambouillet, this writer in the reformed his house in the Rue de Beauce, in the Marais. There came Chaplain , Conrart , Pelisson , Housekeeping , Buckwheat , Isarn , Godeau , the Duke of Montausier , the Comtesse de la Suze , the Marquise de Sable , the Marquise de Sevigne , Madame de Cornuel , Aragonese, etc..
In the meetings, which took place on Saturday, it was the flirtation and refined. It read small parts to , we were discussing the merits and shortcomings of recent literature, we will comment at length, and often with a touch of wit, things of lesser value and lesser importance. During these conversations, the ladies working in the adjustments of two dolls they called the large and small worms , which were intended to serve as models in fashion. Each had a nickname used, almost always derived from novels Conrart called "Thodamas" Pelisson, "Acanthus" Buckwheat, "polyandrous" Godeau, "Magus of Sidon, Aragonese," the princess Philoxene " Madeleine de Scuderi, "Sappho."
The most famous was the Saturday 20 December 1653 , was called the "day of madrigals" Conrart had offered that day, a stamp with a crystal madrigal of sending the hostess who answered Another madrigal , and bystanders, pricking emulation, improvised in turn a series of madrigals. It was at another meeting on Saturday that was developed the Map of Tenderness , then transported by Madeleine de Scuderi in the novel of Clelia.
Another meeting was held at the Marquise de Sable when she was withdrawn at the top of the Faubourg Saint-Jacques to inhabit an apartment depending on the monastery of Port Royal. "In this semi-retirement," said Sainte-Beuve , who had one day to the convent and a door ajar on the world again, this old friend of La Rochefoucauld , always active mind, and interested in everything, continued to meet around her, until the year 1678 , where she died, the names most distinguished and most diverse: old friends who remained faithful, who came from afar, the city or court, for visit; half-lonely people in the world like her, whose mind had only enhance beauty and sharpen the retirement of solitary occupation, it tore at times, by dint of obsession gracious to their vow of silence. "
The Countess of Wart , a former favorite of Duke Victor Amadeus II of Savoy , a friend of literature, science and art, also resided with her at the hotel Hauterive, a company chosen by writers and philosophers, including Voltaire , the Abbe Terrasson , Rothelin , the Keeper Chauvelin , Jean-Francois Melon , Jean-Baptiste Montulli , the Marquis de Lassay and his son Leon Madaillan Lesparre, Earl of Lassay and many others who came to settle near her home.
Ninon de l'Enclos also held in his old age, a salon where women of the world and the court, as Margaret Pit , Marie Anne de Bouillon , Marie-Angelique de Coulanges , Anne-Marie Cornuel , etc.. came to join the circle of his admirers. Francoise de Maintenon , to when she was the wife of Scarron also held a salon which acquired a great reputation. In the hotel lounges of Albret and finally Richelieu, where you would meet all the people of distinction, gleaming Marie de Sevigne , Marie-Madeleine de La Fayette Marie-Angelique de Coulanges.
From the beginning of the eighteenth century , found the salon of the Duchesse du Maine will open in a castle of Sceaux , where she hosted writers and artists but also gave Christmas costume nights. She did, according to the remark of a writer, the temple compliments delicate and graceful frivolities, it was a piquant contrast to the Palace of Versailles or off the sluggish years of Louis XIV to his decline. Malezieu and Abbe Genest presided over the literary entertainment that the duchess offered its most loyal regulars which comprised the "Order of the Fly Honey," as spiritual courtiers had imagined in his honor. Among the clever people that we saw the Christmas Seals, were distinguished, foremost, Fontenelle , La Motte Houdar and Chaulieu. The maid of the Duchess, Marguerite De Launay , Baronne de Staal future, was soon noticed and played his part in the friendly society in which we could also rub Voltaire , Emilie du Chatelet , Marie Du Deffand , Montesquieu , d'Alembert The President Henault , the future Cardinal de Bernis , Henri Franois d'Aguesseau , the poet Jean-Baptiste Rousseau , playwright Houdar Antoine de la Motte , St. Aulaire , Abbe Mably , Cardinal de Polignac , Auguste Charles La Fare , the Hellenistic Andr Dacier , the abbot of Vertot , the Comte de Caylus , etc. ..
At the same time, the salon of Anne-Therese Courcelles, Marquise de Lambert , the more severe and frequent in part by the same writers, opened in 1710 and only closed in 1733. Most of the guests then gathered in the famous salon of Madame de Tencin that shone up the latter's death in 1749. The Marquise de Lambert received every Tuesday. "It was, says Fontenelle, the only house that was saved from the epidemic disease of the game, the only one where it was reasonable to talk to each other, with spirit and the occasion. "It showed particularly with Houdar Fontenelle and La Motte, Father Mongault , the surveyor of Dortous Mairan , the abbot of Bragelonne and President Henault. This is the Tuesday of the Marquise de Lambert that were discussed before being delivered to the public on issues relating to the superiority of modern over the ancient , the uselessness of around for the poetry , the absurdity of personifications mythological , the barriers that rules no value other than their antiquity brought to the free play of intelligence, questions which critics of the time were the subject of much controversy.
The lounge of the Hotel de Sully , who also opened in the first part of the eighteenth century , is no less worthy of attention by the manner in which he was held and the characters who met here. "The spirit, birth, good taste, talent," said the editor of Hansard Jean-Franois Barrire , gave them an appointment. Never, it would seem, society was no better choice, or more varied knowledge showed himself without pedantry, and freedom that allowing them manners seemed tempered by decorum. "The regulars were Chaulieu Hotel Fontenelle, Caumartin , the Comte d'Argenson , the President Henault, Voltaire and the Chevalier Ramsay , the Marquise Marie de Villars , the Marquise de Flamarens Agnes Anne , the Duchess Amelia of Gontaut , etc..
Among the many literary salons were opened in Paris in the middle of the eighteenth century , we must mention first that of the Marquise of Mary Deffand , including the rare and robust because she brought in lectures and discussions in which she was presiding encouraged by Voltaire as follows:
- What is beautiful and bright is your item, do not be afraid to do the essay, do not blush to join the graces of your person the strength of your mind.
The company assembled, from 1749 to the Marchioness of Deffand, rue Saint-Dominique , in the former convent of the Sisters of St. Joseph, was suddenly reduced by his quarrel and his break with his niece natural , Julie de Lespinasse, who served as his lady companion because it brought with it most of the writers, especially encyclopedists , d'Alembert in mind, when it opened in 1764 , its own lounge Rue de Bellechasse, where Mrs. of Luxembourg had given him a furnished apartment. Contemporaries are full of praise for the perfect tact with which Julie de Lespinasse, whom the Duke of Choiseul gave him a pension on her cassette and that Marie-Therese Geoffrin said, meanwhile, a pension of 3,000 francs , was able to keep her salon. Thirty to forty people gathered in the evening at home, only for cause because she had an income too low to give them supper. She led the conversation with admirable skill, so that everyone would turn and its role, and yet, apart from friends Alembert , his circle was not composed of people linked with each other. It was said that the Marquise du Deffand represented the century before Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Julie de Lespinasse century after the invasion of the novel in all things.
The salon of Marie-Therese Geoffrin, who took most of the guests of Mrs. Tencin , was less literary scope and that of a noble benefactor making use of his fortune, bringing with it those to whom she was helping, but keeping , under an appearance of softness, despotic ways of acting, as if to remind the good she had done. She tried to avoid the unexpected in the conversation, by always putting together the same persons, and divided the regulars of his living room into three categories. Were admitted in the evening the people of the nobility and foreigners of distinction. They could stay for dinner, which was very simple, while dinner, which was contrary to the sumptuous, was the time she received her other guests. On Monday, it received the artists, painters, sculptors, architects, on Wednesday, the literati and scholars, among which are especially Diderot , d'Alembert , Dortous of Mairan , Marmontel , Raynal , Saint-Lambert , Thomas , d 'Holbach , the Comte de Caylus , etc..
Besides these three rooms of the eighteenth century , there were still those of Louise d'Epinay , of Quinault Cadette and Doublet Persian. We saw in the living room of Louise d'Epinay, who was limited to a small circle of writers and philosophers most enlightened, Baron Grimm , Diderot and d'Holbach. The meetings of what was called the Society of the end of the bench , standing among the distinguished actress of the Comedie-French , very prevalent in the literary world, Jeanne-Franoise Quinault , Quinault Cadette said included a large number of regulars, among them distinguished men of letters as d'Alembert , Diderot , Duclos , Rousseau , Destouches , Marivaux , Caylus , Voltaire , Piron , Voisenon , Grimm , Lagrange-Chancel , Stuck , Moncrif , Grimod La Reyniere , son Crebillon , St. Lambert , Fagan Lugny , the abbot of La Marre , Knight Destouches and men of power as Maurepas , Honor-Armand de Villars , Duke of Lauragais, the Duke of Orleans , the Grand Prior of Orleans The Marquis de Livry , Antoine de Ferioli Pont-de-Veyle etc.. The conversation took place mainly at the table for dinner. In the middle of the table was an inkstand, each of the guests are served in turn to write an impromptu. From there came the books published under the titles of reports of these gentlemen and New Year's gift of St. John. These productions were lighter than the smallest part of what was in the Company's end of the bench. The philosophy was an important place in his meals when there issued the boldest ideas on religious or political issues until the company became so numerous dinners had to stand out. Philosophers expelled the poets, gaiety vanished, and the company was dissolved.
Located in an apartment outside the convent of the Filles St. Thomas, including the hostess, Madame Doublet Persian , do not cross the threshold once in the space of forty years resembled the situation he held to those the Marquise de Sable and Marchioness of Deffand. That the meeting of the "office of mind", which received the "Parish" was held at her home that came the famous news- and much of the Mmoires secrets of Bachaumont. Do not forget the salon of the Marquise de Turpin, where were Favart , Voisenon and Boufflers , and where they founded the Order of the Round Table, which produced the little book entitled The Day of Love.
Finally, on the eve of the Revolution , there is still room Suzanne Necker , where Germaine de Stael , when child prodigy, was talking to Grimm , Thomas , Raynal , Gibbon , Marmontel : salon and Anne-Catherine Helvetius , if known by the name "Corporation d'Auteuil," which brought together Condillac , d'Holbach , Turgot, Chamfort , Cabanis , Morellet , Destutt de Tracy , etc..
Circles and "salons" of the Revolution to the Restoration
Contrary to what some historians reported, circles never improperly appointed rooms - the word appears only in the nineteenth century , including the pen of the Duchess of Abrantes Laure Junot - and sociability n ' have been more important in France and Europe until the very end of the eighteenth century and the early years of the nineteenth century. It still exists at that time several expressions to describe what was later called "literary salons. It was fluent in effect under Louis XVI of "offices of mind" to describe a meeting at regular intervals in a society lady, and his regulars are "society."
Sociability of time pre-revolutionary and revolutionary revolves around these places of influence whose common characteristic, unlike the clubs and academies game that appear with the Masonic lodges, is confined exclusively to the private sphere. Over time and especially by the news, these meetings are not open to all comers and take a tone less "literary" - as if the show is that "literary" in the strict sense has never existed - that politics, more or less - even if literature, theater, acting, painting and music are then occupied an important place. Depending on circumstances, it is more or less supportive of philosophers, appointment of a ministerial decision, a play about innuendo, an actor or actress to success.
Calonne, Necker Lomenie de Brienne, Mademoiselle Clairon to name a few, have often, under Louis XVI, was the focus of these discussions of "fair." Senac Meilhan or Abbe Morellet were contemporaries who may be best considered this dimension usually retracted. Mme de La Grimod Reyniere or at the Marquise de Cassini, it peddles new but more importantly, we plot to make or break a man up, decrease influence, ruin a reputation. The closer you get to the Revolution, the more "rooms" are radicalized and are distinguished from each other.
Ten years before the Revolution, the "wit" has generally given way to political battles and clashes which involved the authors (Chamfort, Rivarol, La Harpe, Beaumarchais, etc..). Between 1784 , when the open arcades of the Palais Royal, then under the first three legislatures of the Revolution, circles, or "salons" are, in some way echo the clubs and academies, they are extensions and they are both places where political influence elaborated various projects, some find a legislative expression.
Among these places, whose importance can not escape politics, there are, as you put behind the words, circle "revolutionary" and "cons-revolutionaries." Guests - mostly writers - received in the salon of Anne-Catherine Helvetius, at Auteuil, Fanny de Beauharnais or rue de Tournon - where she is giving a reading of Charles IX - are regarded as "revolutionary" as opposed to meetings held at the Duchesse de Polignac, the Comtesse de Brionne and the Duchess of Villeroy whose regulars, very politicized, too, seek to sabotage the meeting of the Estates General. "Revolutionary" in 1789, the circle of Mrs. Charles Lameth events will be over soon perceived "cons-revolutionaries" and if Robespierre appears regularly from 1789 to May 1790, it fails after the split of the Jacobins and the creation of the club Feuillants.
Writers haunt all those "rooms" so important to the history of ideas, and all sensitivities are represented. Literature and theater, free from the pervasive censorship of the ancien regime , are subject to endless discussions and confrontations. Under the Legislative , the fashionable salons are those of Ms. Pastoret, Revolution Square and then at Auteuil, which Morellet speaks at length in his letters to Sophie de Condorcet , rue de Bourbon, Germaine de Stael , mistress of the then minister Narbonne Rue du Bac, Manon Roland called "the muse of the Girondins, rue de la Harpe, Julie Talma Street Chantereine. In contrast, in the salon of Madame de Montmorin, wife of Minister of Foreign Affairs, which comes Rivarol which is one of the pillars, one tries to entice the writers for "good cause" Famous French Salons The most popular shows have been (partial list): Sixteenth century
XVII century
XVIII century
XIX century
In the twentieth century
Fair famous English
in the eighteenth century
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