Category: History - European

The Women of the French Salons

Transition period--Mme. De Montesson--Mme. De Genus--Revival of the Literary Spirit--Mme. De Beaumont--Mme. De Remusat--Mme. De Souza--Mme. De Duras--Mme. De Krudener--Fascination of Mme. Recamier--Her Friends--Her Convent Salon--Chateaubriand Decline of the Salon

Chapters

20. Chapter 20

The Hotel de Rambouillet has been called the "cradle of polished society," but the personality of its hostess is less familiar than that of many who followed in her train. This...

25. Chapter 25

"Believe me, my dearest, you are the person in the world whom I have most truly loved," wrote Mme. de La Fayette to Mme. de Sevigne a short time before her death. This friendshi...

24. Chapter 24

Among the brilliant French women of the seventeenth century, no one is so well-known today as Mme. de Sevigne. She has not only been sung by poets and portrayed by historians, b...

37. Chapter 37

In the best sense, society is born, not made. A crowd of well-dressed people is not necessarily a society. They may meet and disperse with no other bond of union than a fine hou...

30. Chapter 30

During the latter half of the eighteenth century the center of social life was no longer the court, but the salons. They had multiplied indefinitely, and, representing every sha...

26. Chapter 26

The traits which strike us most forcibly in the lives and characters of the women of the early salons, which colored their minds, ran through their literary pastimes, and gave a...

35. Chapter 35

The salons of the Revolution were no longer simply the fountains of literary and artistic criticism, the centers of wit, intelligence, knowledge, philosophy, and good manners, b...

32. Chapter 32

While the group of iconoclasts who formed the nucleus of the philosophical salons was airing its theories and enjoying its increasing vogue, there was another circle which playe...

23. Chapter 23

The transition from the restless character and stormy experiences of the Grande Mademoiselle, to the gentler nature and the convent salon of her friend and literary confidante,...

36. Chapter 36

The fame of all other French women is more or less overshadowed by that of one who was not only supreme in her own world, but who stands on a pinnacle so high that time and dist...

21. Chapter 21

There were a few contemporary salons among the noblesse, modeled more or less after the Hotel de Rambouillet, but none of their leaders had the happy art of conciliating so many...

29. Chapter 29

It was not in the restless searchings of an old society for new sensations, new diversions, nor in the fleeting expressions of individual taste or caprice, which were often litt...

34. Chapter 34

There was one woman who held a very prominent place in the society of this period, and who has a double interest for us, though she was not French, and never quite caught the sp...

33. Chapter 33

Inseparably connected with the name of Mme. du Deffand is that of her companion and rival, Mlle. de Lespinasse, the gifted, charming, tender and loving woman who presided over o...

22. Chapter 22

There are certain women preeminently distinguished by diversity of gifts, who fail to leave behind them a fame at all commensurate with their promise. It may be from a lack of u...

27. Chapter 27

While the gay suppers of the regent were giving a new but by no means desirable tone to the great world of Paris, and chasing away the last vestiges of the stately decorum that...

31. Chapter 31

A few of the more radical and earnest of the philosophers rarely, if ever, appeared at the table of Mme. Geoffrin. They would have brought too much heat to this company, which d...

28. Chapter 28

The life of the eighteenth century, with its restlessness, its love of amusements, its ferment of activities, and its essential frivolity, finds a more fitting representative in...

19. Chapter 19

"Inspire, but do not write," said LeBrun to women. Whatever we may think today of this rather superfluous advice, we can readily pardon a man living in the atmosphere of the old...

18. Chapter 18

Transition period--Mme. De Montesson--Mme. De Genus--Revival of the Literary Spirit--Mme. De Beaumont--Mme. De Remusat--Mme. De Souza--Mme. De Duras--Mme. De Krudener--Fascinati...

7. Chapter 7

6. Chapter 6

2. Chapter 2

8. Chapter 8

11. Chapter 11

15. Chapter 15

16. Chapter 16

13. Chapter 13

9. Chapter 9

17. Chapter 17

5. Chapter 5

10. Chapter 10

14. Chapter 14

3. Chapter 3

12. Chapter 12

4. Chapter 4

1. Chapter 1