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152-631: Marie Thérèse Geoffrin ( French pronunciation: [maʁi teʁɛz ʁɔdɛ ʒɔfʁɛ̃] , née Rodet ; 26 June 1699 – 6 October 1777) was a French salon holder who has been referred to as one of the leading female figures in the French Enlightenment . From 1750 to 1777, Madame Geoffrin played host to many of the most influential Philosophes and Encyclopédistes of her time. Her association with several prominent dignitaries and public figures from across Europe has earned Madame Geoffrin international recognition. Her patronage and dedication to both

304-399: A 5 a.m. rising, through a morning of domestic duties, letter writing, and errands, to the afternoons she devoted twice a week to her salon." Although some historians, such as Dena Goodman, associate Geoffrin and other salonnières with intellectual life, other researchers depict the salons as the realm of anti-intellectual socialites. For example, with no education or remarkable mental gifts of

456-734: A center of the Romantic era in Sweden and, arguably the most famed literary salon in Sweden. During the 1860s and 1870s, the Limnell Salon of the rich benefactor Fredrika Limnell in Stockholm came to be a famous center of the Swedish cultural elite, were especially writers gathered to make contact with wealthy benefactors, a role which was eventually taken over by the Curman Receptions of Calla Curman in

608-457: A collection of spaces and resources focused around the court as a center of power and distribution of favors. Lilti paints a picture of a reciprocal relationship between men of letters and salonnières. Salonnières attracted the finest men of letters through gift-giving or regular allowance in order to boost the reputation of the salons. For salon hosts and hostesses, they were not merely sources of information, but also important points of relay in

760-632: A common ground: the Republic of Letters and the Enlightenment were distinct. The mid-17th century had seen the community of the curious take its first tentative steps towards institutionalization with the establishment of permanent literary and scientific academies in Paris and London under royal patronage. The foundation of the Royal Society in 1662, with its open door, was particularly important in legitimizing

912-459: A community. The philosophes , by contrast, represented a new generation of men of letters who were consciously controversial and politically subversive. Moreover, they were urbane popularizers, whose style and lifestyle was much more in tune with the sensibilities of the aristocratic elite who set the tone for the reading public. Goodman's approach has found favor with the medical historian Thomas Broman . Building on Habermas, Broman argues that

1064-564: A distinctly feminist historiography. The salons, according to Carolyn Lougee, were distinguished by 'the very visible identification of women with salons', and the fact that they played a positive public role in French society. General texts on the Enlightenment, such as Daniel Roche's France in the Enlightenment tend to agree that women were dominant within the salons, but that their influence did not extend far outside of such venues. It was, however, Goodman's The Republic of Letters that ignited

1216-413: A fiction of equality that never dissolved differences in status but nonetheless made them bearable. The "grands" (high-ranking nobles) only played the game of mutual esteem as long as they kept the upper hand. Men of letters were well aware of this rule, never confusing the politeness of the salons with equality in conversation. As well, the advantages that writers gained from visiting salons extended to

1368-470: A gradual movement towards an international Respublica with set channels of communication and particular points of focus (e.g. university towns and publishing houses), or simply the home of a respected figure. Many learned periodicals began as imitations or rivals of publications originating after the mid-17th century. It is generally acknowledged that the Journal des Sçavans , a French journal started in 1665,

1520-426: A handful of women to participate in the Enlightenment. "The salonnières of the Enlightenment were a small number of women who knew and admired one another, lived lives of regularity rather than dissipation, and were committed both to their own education and the philosophes' project of Enlightenment." Dena Goodman's notion of the centrality of the salonnières in creating Enlightenment institutions places Madame Geoffrin at

1672-433: A matter of debate. These older texts tend to portray reasoned debates and egalitarian polite conversation. Dena Goodman claims that, rather than being leisure based or 'schools of civilité', salons were at 'the very heart of the philosophic community' and thus integral to the process of Enlightenment. In short, Goodman argues, the 17th and 18th century saw the emergence of the academic, Enlightenment salons, which came out of

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1824-473: A real debate surrounding the role of women within the salons and the Enlightenment as a whole. According to Goodman: 'The salonnières were not social climbers but intelligent, self-educated, and educating women who adopted and implemented the values of the Enlightenment Republic of Letters and used them to reshape the salon to their own social intellectual, and educational needs'. Wealthy members of

1976-523: A rhetoric. For her, it was essentially an open-minded discourse of discovery where like-minded intellectuals adopted a traditionally feminine mode of discussion to explore the great problems of life. Enlightenment discourse was purposeful gossip and indissolubly connected with the Parisian salons. In 2003, Susan Dalton published Engendering the Republic of Letters: Reconnecting Public and Private Spheres . Dalton supports Dena Goodman's view that women played

2128-533: A role in the Enlightenment. In 1995, Anne Goldgar published Impolite Learning: Conduct and Community in the Republic of Letters, 1680–1750 . Goldgar sees the Republic as a cluster of learned scholars and scientists, whose correspondence and published works (usually in Latin) reveal a community of conservative scholars with preference for substance over style. Lacking any common institutional attachments and finding it difficult to attract aristocratic and courtly patrons,

2280-523: A role in the collapse of the Ancien Régime . This attention to the mechanisms of dissemination and promotion has led historians to debate the importance of the Republic of Letters during the Enlightenment. In 1994, Dena Goodman published The Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the French Enlightenment . In this feminist work, she described the Enlightenment not as a set of ideas but as

2432-475: A society that agreed with Madame Chemineau's (her grandmother's) position." She also states, "Her earliest schoolmasters were Fontenelle , the abbe de Saint-Pierre , and Montesquieu . Madame de Tencin played a large role in Madame Geoffrin's rise in society. Goodman states, "Madame Geoffrin made a daring step for a devout girl when, at the age of eighteen, but already a wife and mother, she began to frequent

2584-416: A sort that leave permanent traces, she was the best representative of the women of her time who held their place in the world solely through their skill in organizing and conducting a salon. She was in no sense a luminary; and conscious that she could not shine by her own light, she was bent upon shining by that of others." Denise Yim adds that "these women considered themselves the purveyors, the disseminators,

2736-475: A strong influence on colonial American letters. During this period, the variety of institutions used for transmitting ideas did not exist in America. Aside from the largely arbitrarily assembled booksellers' stocks, an occasional overseas correspondence, and the publisher's or printer's advertisements to be found in the back of the books, the only way colonial intellectuals could keep alive their philosophical interests

2888-452: A true periodical press was slow, but once this principle was established it was only a matter of time before printers would perceive that the public was also interested in the world of scholarship. Formerly the domain of "les savants " and " érudits ," the Republic of Letters now became the province of "les curieux ." Historians have long understood that the English and French periodicals had

3040-544: A type of formalized continuity in the salons. Though it has been argued that women did not appear in salon societies, the training of salonnières was undertaken by older women in the same position. Dena Goodman states, "Indeed, the history of the eighteenth century salon is a history of female apprenticeships, where younger women, such as Madame Geoffrin learned from older women, such as Madame de Tencin , and Julie de Lespinasse and Suzanne Necker learned in turn from Madame Geoffrin." Therefore, Madame Geoffrin spent many years in

3192-493: A well-governed Republic of Letters. From 1765 until 1776, men of letters and those who wanted to be counted among the citizens of their Republic could meet in Parisian salons any day of the week. The salons were literary institutions that relied on a new ethic of polite sociability based on hospitality, distinction, and the entertainment of the elite. The salons were open to intellectuals, who used them to find protectors and sponsors and to fashion themselves as 'hommes du monde.' In

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3344-456: A wider version of the Enlightenment cultural practices as well as downgrading "all other seemingly enlightened woman." Antoine Lilti, in countering many of Goodman's arguments, would debase the idea that Madame Geoffrin acted as a participant in the new sociability of Enlightenment society. Instead he claims that the politeness and gift giving would have been unthinkable without the presences of fashionable men of letters, which attracted to her salon

3496-425: Is evident, although they do not say so themselves, that Julie de Lespinasse, Madame Geoffrin and Madame Vigee-Lebrun also improved themselves in their own salons. This representation has been debased by much of the recent literature. Janet Burke and Margaret Jacob write that by placing only, "a handful of selfless salonnières (such as Geoffrin) at the centre of Enlightenment history, Goodman is effectively obliterating

3648-501: Is no reason to contradict the widely held view that the salon was a feminist space insofar as it was more often than not presided over by a woman who gave it tone and structure." However, he states, "But it is one thing to say that the presence of a woman is a distinguishing feature of salons and another to argue that female dominance set them apart from other institutions of elite sociability." He adamantly believes that, "Salonnières generally exercised no political power outside their role in

3800-552: Is on display at The Brooklyn Museum. Like Stein, she was also an author and American ex-pat living in Paris at the time, hosting literary salons that were attended by Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald as well. She bought a home with an old Masonic temple in the backyard which she dubbed Temple d’Amitié, the Temple of Friendship, for private meetings with attendees of her salons. In 2018, Barnard College professor Caroline Weber's book “Proust's Duchess: How Three Celebrated Women Captured

3952-543: Is reputed to have offered Madame Geoffrin and her daughter opportunities to present themselves at the French Court. It was an honor that was refused (on more than one occasion) by the salonnières. Another salonnière, the Marquise du Deffand, can be said to have competed against Madame Geoffrin for the friendship of many prominent men of letters. Aldis writes, "There had always been a kind of tacit rivalry between Madame Geoffrin and

4104-508: Is that Pierre Bayle first translated the term in his journal Nouvelles de la République des Lettres in 1684. But there are some historians who disagree and some have gone so far as to say that its origin dates back to Plato's Republic . Historians are presently debating the importance of the Republic of Letters in influencing the Enlightenment . Today, most British or American historians, whatever their point of entry to debate, occupy

4256-693: Is the father of all journals. The first of the Dutch-based ones, and also the first of the genuinely "critical" journals, the Nouvelles de la République des Lettres , edited by Pierre Bayle , appeared in March 1684, followed in 1686 by the Bibliothèque Universelle of Jean Le Clerc . While French and Latin predominated, there was also soon a demand for book news and reviews in German and Dutch. The evolution of

4408-473: The Bluestockings and other intellectuals to discuss a variety of topics. At that time women had powerful influence over the salon. Women were the center of life in the salon and carried very important roles as regulators. They could select their guests and decide the subjects of their meetings. These subjects could be social, literary, or political topics of the time. They also served as mediators by directing

4560-527: The French Revolution and especially under Napoleon Bonaparte 's Regime. It has become known as the Coppet group . De Staël is author of around thirty publications, from which On Germany (1813) was the most well known in its time. She has been painted by such famous painters as François Gérard and Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun . In 18th-century England, salons were held by Elizabeth Montagu , in whose salon

4712-587: The Palais du Louvre by the marquise de Rambouillet , where gathered the original précieuses , and, in 1652 in Le Marais , the rival salon of Madeleine de Scudéry , a long time habituée of the Hôtel de Rambouillet. Les bas-bleus , borrowed from England's " blue-stockings ," soon found itself in use upon the attending ladies, a nickname continuing to mean "intellectual woman" for the next three hundred years. Paris salons of

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4864-635: The Reader , and more. At Harvard College in 1721 a weekly periodical entitled the Telltale was inaugurated by a group of students, including Ebenezer Pemberton , Charles Chauncy , and Isaac Greenwood . As the Telltale's subtitle – "Criticisms on the Conversation and Behaviours of Scholars to promote right reasoning and good manners" – made explicit, it was a direct imitation of the English genteel periodical. One of

5016-604: The Russo-Swedish War (1741–1743) through the campaign for the war she launched in her salon. Outside of politics, Hedvig Charlotta Nordenflycht acted as the hostess of the literary academy Tankebyggarorden and Anna Maria Lenngren did the same for the Royal Swedish Academy . During the reign of Gustavian age , the home of Anna Charlotta Schröderheim came to be known as a center of opposition. Salon hostesses were still attributed influence in politic affairs in

5168-475: The public sphere as being more widespread than previously appreciated. Recent historiography of the salons has been dominated by Jürgen Habermas ' work, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (triggered largely by its translation into French, in 1978, and then English, in 1989), which argued that the salons were of great historical importance. Theaters of conversation and exchange – such as

5320-400: The public sphere is so heavily contested. Individuals and collections of individuals that have been of cultural significance overwhelmingly cite some form of engaged, explorative conversation regularly held with an esteemed group of acquaintances as the source of inspiration for their contributions to culture, art, literature and politics, leading some scholars to posit the salon's influence on

5472-779: The 1680s and 1690s, the salon of countess Magdalena Stenbock became a meeting where foreign ambassadors in Stockholm came to make contacts, and her gambling table was described as a center of Swedish foreign policy. During the Swedish Age of Liberty (1718–1772), women participated in political debate and promoted their favorites in the struggle between the Caps (party) and the Hats (party) through political salons. These forums were regarded influential enough for foreign powers to engage some of these women as agents to benefit their interests in Swedish politics. The arguably most noted political salonnière of

5624-501: The 16th century, then flourished in France throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. It continued to flourish in Italy throughout the 19th century. In 16th-century Italy, some brilliant circles formed in the smaller courts which resembled salons, often galvanized by the presence of a beautiful and educated patroness such as Isabella d'Este or Elisabetta Gonzaga . Salons were an important place for

5776-483: The 1840s were a related phenomenon attracting men and women, scientists and writers. Martha Washington , the first American First Lady , performed a function similar to the host or hostess of the European salon. She held weekly public receptions throughout her husband's eight-year presidency (1789–1797). At these gatherings, members of Congress , visiting foreign dignitaries, and ordinary citizens alike were received at

5928-569: The 1860s. Her salon was attended by Moncure D. Conway , Louisa May Alcott , Arthur Munby , feminists Barbara Bodichon , Lydia Becker , Elizabeth Blackwell , and Elizabeth Malleson. Holland House in Kensington under the Fox family in the late 18th and early 19th centuries was akin to a French salon, largely for adherents to the Whig Party. Charles Babbage's Saturday night soirées from 1828 and into

6080-598: The 1880s and 1890s. In Iberia or Latin America , a tertulia is a social gathering with literary or artistic overtones. The word is originally Spanish and has only moderate currency in English, in describing Latin cultural contexts. Since the 20th century, a typical tertulia has moved out from the private drawing-room to become a regularly scheduled event in a public place such as a bar, although some tertulias are still held in more private spaces. Participants may share their recent creations ( poetry , short stories , other writings, even artwork or songs). In Switzerland,

6232-694: The 18th and 19th centuries, many large cities in Europe held salons along the lines of the Parisian models. Prior to the formation of Belgium, Béatrix de Cusance hosted a salon in Brussels in what was then the Spanish Netherlands in the mid-17th century. In the late 18th century, the political salon of Anne d'Yves played a role in the Brabant Revolution of 1789. In Belgium , the 19th-century salon hosted by Constance Trotti attracted cultural figures,

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6384-412: The 18th century hosted by women include the following: Some 19th-century salons were more inclusive, verging on the raffish, and centered around painters and "literary lions" such as Madame Récamier . After the shock of the 1870 Franco-Prussian War , French aristocrats withdrew from the public eye. However, Princess Mathilde still held a salon in her mansion, rue de Courcelles, later rue de Berri. From

6536-475: The 18th century, and among the most notable salonnières were Barbara Sanguszko , Zofia Lubomirska , Anna Jabłonowska , a noted early scientist and collector of scientific objects and books, Izabela Czartoryska , and her later namesake, Princess Izabela Czartoryska founder of Poland's first museum and a patron of the Polish composer Frederic Chopin . The salon culture was introduced to Imperial Russia during

6688-516: The Arts: Adele Bloch-Bauer and Berta Zuckerkandl . Increasingly emancipated German-speaking Jews wanted to immerse themselves in the rich cultural life. However, individual Jews were faced with a dilemma: they faced new opportunities, but without the comfort of a secure community. For Jewish women, there was an additional issue. German society imposed the usual gender role restrictions and antisemitism, so cultivated Jewish women tapped into

6840-533: The Belgian aristocracy and members of the French exiled colony. In Denmark , the salon culture was adopted during the 18th century. Christine Sophie Holstein and Charlotte Schimmelman were the most notable hostesses, in the beginning and in the end of the 18th century respectively, both of whom were credited with political influence. During the Danish Golden Age in the late 18th century and early 19th century,

6992-402: The Enlightenment was a movement of intellectual transparency and laicization. While members of the Republic of Letters lived hermetically sealed from the outside world, talking only to one another, their enlightened successors deliberately placed their ideas before the bar of a nascent public opinion. Broman essentially sees The Republic of Letters as located in the cabinet and the Enlightenment in

7144-402: The Enlightenment." Goodman writes: "Geoffrin, who acted as a mentor and model for other salonnières, was responsible for two innovations that set Enlightenment salons apart from their predecessors and from other social and literacy gatherings of the day. She invented the Enlightenment salon. First, she made the one-o'clock dinner rather than the traditional late-night supper the sociable meal of

7296-561: The Imagination of Fin-de-Siècle Paris” was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize and was the first in-depth study of the three Parisian salon hostesses Proust used to create his supreme fictional character, the Duchesse de Guermantes. Contemporary literature about the salons is dominated by idealistic notions of politeness, civility and honesty, though whether they lived up to these standards is

7448-503: The Literary Republic, literary women shared such sociability as society at large afforded. This varied widely in America from one locality to one another. Very soon after the introduction of printing with moveable type, the Republic of Letters became closely identified with the press. The printing press also played a prominent role in the establishment of a community of scientists who could easily communicate their discoveries through

7600-483: The Marquise du Deffand; the aristocratic Marquise sneered at her rival's low origin for the business and want of education, while Madame Geoffrin might well have ignored her taunts in the success of her salon, indisputably, the most celebrated in Paris and the civilized world."Geoffrin's relationship with her daughter is one exception to the continuity between women in the salons. Madame de la Ferté-Imbault, upon hearing her mother's suggestion to begin her own salon, organized

7752-449: The Monday and Wednesday dinners of Madame Geoffrin was an honor greatly coveted by foreigners passing through Paris. The hostess herself had gained a European reputation even before her journey to Poland, and to dine with Madame Geoffrin was by some people considered almost as great an honor as being presented at Versailles."" Yim continues, "Whether it was Madame Geoffrin's design to attract all

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7904-509: The Order of Lanurelus, a type of counter-salon that acted in opposition to the serious salons of the Philosophes. The Order of Lanurelus (of which de la Ferté-Imbault proclaimed herself Grand Mistress) ran from 1771 until around the time of Geoffrin's death in 1777. "It was a forum not for the philosophes and their Republic of Letters, but for the anti-philosophe campaign. Goodman writes, "The battle of

8056-614: The Present Time . The Young Students Library , like the Universal Historical Bibliothèque of 1687, was made up almost entirely of translated pieces, in this case mostly from the Journal des Sçavans , Bayle's Nouvelles de la République des Lettres, and Le Clerc's and La Crose's Bibliothèque Universelle et Historique . The Young Students Library of 1692 was exemplary of the kind of material to be found in later forms of

8208-563: The Republic of Letters and thus become cosmopolitans. In Paris specialization was taken to new heights where, in addition to existing Académie Française and the Académie des Sciences founded in 1635 and 1666, there were three further royal foundations in the 18th century: the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (1701), the Académie de Chirurgie (1730), and the Société de Médecine (1776). By

8360-529: The Republic of Letters in England and providing a European center of gravity for the movement. The Royal Society primarily promoted science, which was undertaken by gentlemen of means acting independently. The Royal Society created its charters and established a system of governance. Its most famous leader was Isaac Newton , president from 1703 until his death in 1727. Other notable members include diarist John Evelyn , writer Thomas Sprat , and scientist Robert Hooke ,

8512-404: The Republic of Letters; the other, the trivial Enlightenment of the Parisian philosophes . The first is a product of a peculiarly English/British and Protestant liberal political and theological tradition and points to the future; the second lacks the anchor of socio-historical analysis and leads unintentionally to Revolutionary mayhem. In the 1930s, the French historian Paul Hazard homed in on

8664-461: The Society's first curator of experiments. It played an international role to adjudicate scientific findings, and published the journal "Philosophical Transactions" edited by Henry Oldenburg . The seventeenth century saw new academies open in France, Germany, and elsewhere. By 1700 they were found in most major cultural centers. They helped local members contact like-minded intellectuals elsewhere in

8816-412: The Swedish age of liberty was countess Hedvig Catharina De la Gardie (1695–1745) , whose salon has some time been referred to as the first in Sweden, and whose influence on state affairs exposed her to libelous pamphlets and made her a target of Olof von Dahlin 's libelous caricature of the political salon hostess in 1733. Magdalena Elisabeth Rahm was attributed to have contributed to the realization of

8968-577: The Westernization Francophile culture of the Russian aristocracy in the 18th century. During the 19th century, several famous salon functioned hosted by the nobility in Saint Petersburg and Moscow, among the most famed being the literary salon of Zinaida Volkonskaya in 1820s Moscow. In Sweden, the salon developed during the late 17th century and flourished until the late 19th century. During

9120-462: The Whiggish, male dominated history identified by Herbert Butterfield . Even in 1970, works were still being produced that concentrated only on individual stories, without analysing the effects of the salonnières' unique position. The integral role that women played within salons, as salonnières, began to receive greater - and more serious - study in latter parts of the 20th century, with the emergence of

9272-403: The academies they supported. Mixed intellectual company was also found in 18th-century Philadelphia for those who sought it, sometimes in social gatherings modeled upon the salons of London and Paris. Where mixed social intercourse of a literary nature was concerned, Americans were virtuously and patriotically inclined to be wary of European examples. Conscious of the relative purity as well as

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9424-458: The afternoon gatherings at the home of Madame de Tencin." After Madame de Tencin's death in December 1749, Madame Geoffrin inherited many of de Tencin's former guests, thereby solidifying her own salon. Madame Geoffrin's popularity in the mid-eighteenth century came during a time where the center of social life was beginning to move away from the French court and toward the salons of Paris. Instead of

9576-455: The age of Pierre Bayle and argued that the cumulative effect of the many different and mordant strands of intellectual curiosity in the last quarter of the 17th century created a European cultural crisis, whose negative harvest the philosophes were to reap. The Republic of Letters and the Enlightenment were insolubly interconnected. Both were movements of criticism. According to Peter Gay , building on Ernst Cassirer 's much earlier study of

9728-494: The aristocracy could have both a means of producing social cohesion and a vehicle for the dissemination of traits meant to characterize a wider society of elites undergoing redefinition." Therefore, Kale visualizes Geoffrin's salon as confirming the aristocratic conception of the social and political conception of the social and political role of women in the Old Regime. Salon (gathering) The salon first appeared in Italy in

9880-473: The aristocracy have always drawn to their court poets, writers and artists, usually with the lure of patronage , an aspect that sets the court apart from the salon. Another feature that distinguished the salon from the court was its absence of social hierarchy and its mixing of different social ranks and orders. In the 17th and 18th centuries, "salon[s] encouraged socializing between the sexes [and] brought nobles and bourgeois together". Salons helped facilitate

10032-423: The aristocratic 'schools of civilité'. Politeness, argues Goodman, took second-place to academic discussion. The period in which salons were dominant has been labeled the 'age of conversation'. The topics of conversation within the salons - that is, what was and was not 'polite' to talk about - are thus vital when trying to determine the form of the salons. The salonnières were expected, ideally, to run and moderate

10184-514: The arts is also emblematic of a more international connection. Her correspondence with both Catherine the Great of Russia and King Stanislaw August of Poland, as well as several other dignitaries and heads of state often centered around the commission of several paintings that were often hung in her salon. On the relationship between Geoffrin and Stanislaw, the academic Maria Gordon-Smith writes, "The King knew Madame Geoffrin in Paris from his youthful days on

10336-405: The basis of a metaphysical Republic. Because of societal constraints on women, the Republic of Letters consisted mostly of men. The Republic of Letters relied heavily on handwritten letters for correspondence. The first known occurrence of the term in its Latin form ( Respublica literaria ) is in a letter by Francesco Barbaro to Poggio Bracciolini dated July 6, 1417. Currently, the consensus

10488-403: The bedroom (treated as a more private form of drawing room): a lady, reclining on her bed, would receive close friends who would sit on chairs or stools drawn around. This practice may be contrasted with the greater formalities of Louis XIV 's petit lever , where all stood. Ruelle , literally meaning "narrow street" or "lane", designates the space between a bed and the wall in a bedroom; it

10640-515: The best examples of a transatlantic Republic of Letters began about 1690, when John Dunton launched a series of journalistic ventures, nearly all of them under the aegis of a forward-looking "club" called the Athenian Society , an English predecessor of Harvard's Telltale Club, Franklin's Junto , and other such associations dedicated to mental and moral improvement. The Athenian society took it as one of their particular goals to spread learning in

10792-453: The breaking down of social barriers which made the development of the enlightenment salon possible. In the 18th century, under the guidance of Madame Geoffrin , Mlle de Lespinasse, and Madame Necker , the salon was transformed into an institution of Enlightenment . The enlightenment salon brought together Parisian society, the progressive philosophes who were producing the Encyclopédie ,

10944-399: The capital, they began to meet together and make their collaboration on the project of Enlightenment direct, and thus suffered the consequences of giving up the mediation that the written word provided. Without this traditional kind of formal mediation, the philosophes needed a new kind of governance. The Parisian salon gave the Republic of Letters source of political order in the person of

11096-489: The circulation of praise. From one salon to the next, in conversation as in correspondence, men of letters gladly praised the social groups who welcomed them. In turn, the salon hostess had to be able to prove their capacity to mobilize as many high society contacts as possible in favor of their protégés. Consequently, correspondences openly display network of influence, and the woman of high society employed all their know-how to help benefit those men of letters whose elections to

11248-483: The community created the Republic of Letters to boost morale as much as for any intellectual reason. Goldgar argues that, in the transitional period between the 17th century and the Enlightenment, the most important common concern by members of the Republic was their own conduct. In the conception of its own members, ideology, religion, political philosophy, scientific strategy, or any other intellectual or philosophical framework were not as important as their own identity as

11400-466: The company of Madame de Tencin, herself a highly influential salonnière, and in turn, spent much time cultivating her own protégées, namely Madame Necker and Madame Lespinasse, who would attempt to continue the salon tradition after her death. One woman allowed admission into Madame Geoffrin's salon, Madame d'Etioles, who was to become Madame la Marquise de Pompadour after earning the French King's interest,

11552-404: The conversation (See Women in the salon). There is, however, no universal agreement among historians as to what was and was not appropriate conversation. Marcel Proust 'insisted that politics was scrupulously avoided'. Others suggested that little other than government was ever discussed. The disagreements that surround the content of discussion partly explain why the salon's relationship with

11704-512: The copyright issue is resolved. The Republic of Letters ( Res Publica Litterarum or Res Publica Literaria ) was the long-distance intellectual community in the late 17th and 18th centuries in Europe and the Americas. It fostered communication among the intellectuals of the Age of Enlightenment , or philosophes as they were called in France. These communities that transcended national boundaries formed

11856-404: The copyright problems page . Unless the copyright status of the text of this page or section is clarified and determined to be compatible with Misplaced Pages's content license , the problematic text and revisions or the entire page may be deleted one week after the time of its listing (i.e. after 23:42, 17 October 2024 (UTC)). Until then, this page will be hidden from search engine results until

12008-419: The courtly people wished to designate, in a broad or narrow sense, the quality of their own behavior'. Joan Landes agrees, stating that, 'to some extent, the salon was merely an extension of the institutionalized court' and that rather than being part of the public sphere, salons were in fact in conflict with it. Erica Harth concurs, pointing to the fact that the state 'appropriated the informal academy and not

12160-408: The cultural salon. But from 1800 on, salons performed a political and social miracle. The salon allowed Jewish women to establish a venue in their homes in which Jews and non-Jews could meet in relative equality. Like-minded people could study art, literature, philosophy or music together. This handful of educated, acculturated Jewish women could escape the restrictions of their social ghetto. Naturally

12312-524: The culture and politics of Harlem at the time. Modern-day versions of the traditional salon (some with a literary focus, and others exploring other disciplines in the arts and sciences) are held throughout the world, in private homes and public venues. Republic of Letters The purported copyright violation copies text from Brockliss, Dalton, Fiering, Goldgar, Goodman, Israel, Kale, Konig, Lambe, Lilti, Ostrander works cited in bibliography ( Copyvios report ) ; as such, this page has been listed on

12464-807: The day, and thus she opened up the whole afternoon for talk. Second, she regulated these dinners, fixing a specific day of the week for them. After Geoffrin launched her weekly dinners, the Parisian salon took on the form that made it the social base of the Enlightenment Republic of Letters : a regular and regulated formal gathering hosted by a woman in her own home which served as a forum and locus of intellectual activity." Her dinners were held twice weekly. Mondays were specifically for artists. Wednesdays were generally reserved for Men of Letters. Goodman writes, "Enlightenment salons were working spaces, unlike other Eighteenth-century social gatherings, which took place as their model." She continues, "The Enlightenment

12616-498: The discussion. The salon was an informal education for women, where they were able to exchange ideas, receive and give criticism, read their own works and hear the works and ideas of other intellectuals. Many ambitious women used the salon to pursue a form of higher education. Two of the most famous 17th-century literary salons in Paris were the Hôtel de Rambouillet , established in 1607 near

12768-521: The discussions at her houses led up to the May Revolution , the first stage in the struggle for Argentine independence from Spain. In the vast Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania , Duchess Elżbieta Sieniawska held a salon at the end of the 17th century. They became very popular there throughout the 18th century. Most renowned were the Thursday Lunches of King Stanisław II Augustus at the end of

12920-401: The earlier, seventeenth-century salons of the high nobility, Madame Geoffrin's salon catered generally to a more philosophical crowd of the Enlightenment period. Goodman, in "Enlightenment Salons," writes, "In the eighteenth century, under the guidance of Madame Geoffrin, Julie de Lespinasse , and Suzanne Necker , the salon was transformed from a noble, leisure institution into an institution of

13072-463: The early 16th century up until around the end of the 18th century. Goodman is typical in ending her study at the French Revolution where, she writes: 'the literary public sphere was transformed into the political public'. Steven Kale is relatively alone in his recent attempts to extend the period of the salon up until Revolution of 1848: A whole world of social arrangements and attitude supported

13224-400: The egos of others (males) without imposing her own upon them." In relation to her (possible) conception and patronage of the highly regarded historical artist Carle Van Loo's painting, Une Conversation the historian Emma Barker writes, "most recent commentators have agreed in locating the interest and significance of these works in their having been commissioned by an exceptional female patron,

13376-529: The end of the 18th century; and in Greece by Alexandra Mavrokordatou in the 17th century. Italy had had an early tradition of the salon; Giovanna Dandolo became known as a patron and gatherer of artists as wife of Pasquale Malipiero , the doge in Venice in 1457–1462, and the courtesan Tullia d'Aragona held a salon already in the 16th century, and in the 17th century Rome, the abdicated Queen Christina of Sweden and

13528-429: The establishment of widely disseminated journals. Because of the printing press, authorship became more meaningful and profitable. The main reason was that it provided correspondence between the author and the person who owned the printing presses – the publisher. This correspondence allowed the author to have a greater control of its production and distribution. The channels opened up by the great publishing houses provided

13680-447: The ever fashionable French model of mistress of the salon, drawing upon feminine social adroitness in arranging meetings of minds, chiefly male, and the ever unfashionable English bluestocking model of no-nonsense, cultivated discourse, chiefly among women. Outside literary salons and clubs, society at large was mixed by nature, as were the families that constituted it. And whether or not men of letters chose to include femme savants in

13832-498: The exchange of ideas. The word salon first appeared in France in 1664 (from the Italian salone , the large reception hall of Italian mansions; salone is actually the augmentative form of sala , room). Literary gatherings before this were often referred to by using the name of the room in which they occurred, like cabinet , réduit , ruelle , and alcôve . Before the end of the 17th century, these gatherings were frequently held in

13984-556: The executive mansion. More recently, "society hostesses" such as Perle Mesta have done so as well. The Stettheimer sisters, including the artist Florine Stettheimer , hosted gatherings at their New York City home in the 1920s and '30s. During the Harlem Renaissance , Ruth Logan Roberts , Georgia Douglas Johnson and Zora Neale Hurston hosted salons that brought together leading figures in African-American literature, and in

14136-727: The existence of French salons: an idle aristocracy, an ambitious middle class, an active intellectual life, the social density of a major urban center, sociable traditions, and a certain aristocratic feminism. This world did not disappear in 1789. In the 1920s, Gertrude Stein 's Saturday evening salons (described in Ernest Hemingway 's A Moveable Feast and depicted fictionally in Woody Allen 's Midnight in Paris ) gained notoriety for including Pablo Picasso and other twentieth-century luminaries like Alice B. Toklas . Her contemporary Natalie Clifford Barney's handmade dinner place setting

14288-687: The expression bluestocking originated, and who created the Blue Stockings Society , and by Hester Thrale . In the 19th century, the Russian Baroness Méry von Bruiningk hosted a salon in St. John's Wood , London , for refugees (mostly German) of the revolutions of 1848 (the Forty-Eighters ). Clementia Taylor , an early feminist and radical held a salon at Aubrey House in Campden Hill in

14440-436: The finest representatives of the Parisian and European aristocracy, and which permitted her to appear as a protector of talents and an accomplished socialite." The historian Steven Kale discounts the entire theory that Madame Geoffrin (and salonnières in general) played a significant role in the Enlightenment. Kale examines the differences in the roles of men and women in the public sphere before and after 1789. He states, "There

14592-465: The first half of the 19th century, which was said of both Aurora Wilhelmina Koskull in the 1820s as well as Ulla De Geer in the 1840s. In the 19th century, however, the leading salon hostesses in Sweden became more noted as the benefactors of the arts and charity than with politics. From 1820 and two decades onward, Malla Silfverstolpe became famous for her Friday nights salon in Uppsala, which became

14744-463: The formation of public opinion, and salons were not centers of political intrigue. Kale states, "Salonnières were engaged in a common social practice, the goal of which was not to achieve for women a role in public affairs but to serve the public needs of men, whether intellectuals or politicians, who had the power to determine the limits of women's public participation." Kale rejects the notion that Geoffrin held any semblance of power; his argument debases

14896-402: The grand tour in 1753, when he was entrusted to her care by her father. After his election, Madame Geoffrin became his adviser and agent in all matters connected with the choice and purchase of French Art." In her relationship to salons, Madame Geoffrin occupies a very contentious space in Enlightenment historiography. On the broadest level of representation, Madame Geoffrin stands as one of only

15048-650: The greatest songs and chamber music works of Fauré , Debussy , Ravel and Poulenc . Until the 1950s, some salons were held by ladies mixing political men and intellectuals during the IVth Republic, like Mme Abrami, or Mme Dujarric de La Rivière. The last salons in Paris were those of Marie-Laure de Noailles , with Jean Cocteau , Igor Markevitch , Salvador Dalí , etc., Marie-Blanche de Polignac ( Jeanne Lanvin 's daughter) and Madeleine and Robert Perrier , with Josephine Baker , Le Corbusier , Django Reinhardt , etc. Salon sociability quickly spread through Europe. In

15200-443: The heart of the Enlightenment sociability. She writes, "Under the guidance of Marie-Therese Geoffrin, Julie de Lespinasse and Suzanne Necker, Parisian salons became the civil working spaces of the project of Enlightenment." Goodman uses Geoffrin to argue that salonnières in the eighteenth century represented a re-shaping of an existing form of sociability that would serve the ambitions of the women who ran them. Goodman states, "In using

15352-567: The hearts and minds of the elite of the eighteenth century was, for a few years, fought out in a single house on the rue Saint-Honoré!" The debate surrounding Madame Geoffrin as a patron of the arts centers around gender divisions and sociability in eighteenth century France. Geoffrin, considered by many contemporaries to be one of the most influential patrons of art, supported many artists and commissioned several works. Dena Goodman, in what has been criticized as perhaps an idealized feminist theory, suggests, "The salonnière's art...allowed her to manage

15504-498: The hostess of a celebrated Parisian salon whose guests included some of the leading figures of the French Enlightenment." Barker argues that the Conversation may be seen to represent a self-consciously feminocentric vision of history." Dena Goodman, in her Republic of Letters , claims that, "the paintings embody the serious spirit of Geoffrin's salon and observes that they depict two activities that dominated salon sociability: conversation and reading out loud." Madame Geoffrin as patron of

15656-440: The intellectual progenitors of Kant , the Enlightenment was the creation of a small group of thinkers, his family of philosophes or ‘party of humanity’, whose coherent anti-Christian, ameliorist, and individualistic programme of reform developed from very specific cultural roots. The Enlightenment was not the offspring of the Republic of Letters, let alone the culmination of three centuries of anti- Augustinian critique, but rather

15808-547: The leading personalities of her time. The most sensitive issues were discussed there, as well as literary topics. Mariquita Sánchez is widely remembered in the Argentine historical tradition because the Argentine National Anthem was sung for the first time in her house, on 14 May 1813. Other notable salonnières in colonial Buenos Aires were Mercedes de Lasalde Riglos and Flora Azcuénaga . Along with Mariquita Sánchez,

15960-521: The learned periodical in England. Expressly lamenting the absence in England of periodicals, the Young Students Library was designed to fill the need in America for periodical literature. For Americans it served, according to David D Hall, as: An expansive vision of learnedness, articulated especially during the Revolutionary period, as a means of advancing 'liberty' and thereby fulfilling

16112-600: The literary salon played a significant part in Danish culture life, notably the literary salons arranged by Friederike Brun at Sophienholm and that of Kamma Rahbek at Bakkehuset . In the German-speaking palatinates and kingdoms, the most famous were held by Jewish ladies, such as Henriette Herz , Sara Grotthuis , and Rahel Varnhagen , and in Austria in the late 18th and early 19th centuries by two prominent Jewish Patrons of

16264-451: The long-held idea that the female-run salons were, "institutions of democratic sociability." Instead, he bases much of his critics of earlier historians on the idea that salonnières such as Madame Geoffrin reaffirmed the aristocratic institutions of the Old Regime. He writes, "The genius of salons, and of salonnières, lay in their ability to maintain a delicate balance between exclusivity and openness, between "inclusions and exclusions", so that

16416-573: The market-place. For most Anglo-American historians, the classic Enlightenment is a forward-looking movement. To these historians, the Republic of Letters are an outdated construction of the 17th century. But in John Pocock 's eyes there are two Enlightenments: one, associated with Edward Gibbon , the author of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire , which is erudite, serious, and scholarly grounded in

16568-545: The middle of the 19th century until the 1930s, a lady of society had to hold her "day", which meant that her salon was opened for visitors in the afternoon once a week, or twice a month. Days were announced in Le Bottin Mondain . The visitor gave his visit cards to the lackey or the maître d'hôtel , and he was accepted or not. Only people who had been introduced previously could enter the salon . Marcel Proust called up his own turn-of-the-century experience to recreate

16720-412: The more positive aspects of women in the salon. Indeed, according to Jolanta T. Pekacz, the fact women dominated history of the salons meant that study of the salons was often left to amateurs, while men concentrated on 'more important' (and masculine) areas of the Enlightenment. Historians tended to focus on individual salonnières, creating almost a 'great-woman' version of history that ran parallel to

16872-444: The most eminent foreigners to her salon, thereby spreading the reputation of her home throughout Europe, as Marmontel wrote, or whether this was the natural consequence of the presence of so many philosophes and Encyclopédistes , it was a fact that no foreign minister, no man or woman of note who arrived in Paris failed to call on Madame Geoffrin in the hope of being invited to one of her select dinners." Madame Geoffrin exemplified

17024-501: The most fundamental level. The salonnière played a prominent role in establishing order within the Republic of Letters during the Enlightenment period. Beginning in the 17th century, salons served to bring together nobles and intellectuals in an atmosphere of civility and fair play in order to educate one, refine the other, and create a common medium of cultural exchange based on the shared notion of honnêteté that combined learning, good manners, and conversational skill. But government

17176-459: The nature of salons. The main criticism of Habermas' interpretation of the salons, however, is that the salons of most influence were not part of an oppositional public sphere, and were instead an extension of court society. This criticism stems largely from Norbert Elias ' The History of Manners , in which Elias contends that the dominant concepts of the salons – politesse , civilité and honnêteté – were 'used almost as synonyms, by which

17328-414: The nurturers, the very guardians of taste in the belles lettres , in the fine arts, and in the music. Their own peculiar art consisted of pleasing." "Maintaining the tensions between inner satisfaction and outer negation which made Geoffrin the model salonnière was not easy." Antoine Lilti also rejects the notion that Geoffrin and other salonnières 'governed' an intellectual arena. Lilti focuses, rather, on

17480-504: The philosophical men of letters and talented artists that frequented her house is emblematic of her role as guide and protector. In her salon on the Rue Saint-Honoré , Madame Geoffrin demonstrated qualities of politeness and civility that helped stimulate and regulate intellectual discussion. Her actions as a Parisian salonnière exemplify many of the most important characteristics of Enlightenment sociability. Born in 1699, Madame Geoffrin

17632-762: The princess Colonna, Marie Mancini , rivaled as salon hostesses. In the 18th century, Aurora Sanseverino provided a forum for thinkers, poets, artists, and musicians in Naples, making her a central figure in baroque Italy . The tradition of the literary salon continued to flourish in Italy throughout the 19th century. Naturally there were many salons with some of the most prominent being hosted by Clara Maffei in Milan, Emilia Peruzzi in Florence and Olimpia Savio in Turin. The salons attracted countless outstanding 19th-century figures including

17784-521: The promise of a republican America. It drew together political radicals and religious dissenters on both sides of the Atlantic, who drew from their shared struggles against a corrupted Parliament and the Church of England a common agenda of constitutional reform. Anglo-American historians have turned their attention to the Enlightenment's dissemination and promotion, inquiring into the mechanisms by which it played

17936-415: The protection by their hosts. The salons provided crucial support in the career of an author, not because they were literary institutions, but, on the contrary, because they allowed men of letters to emerge from the circles of the Republic of Letters and access the resources of aristocratic and royal patronage. As a result, instead of an opposition between the court and the Republic of Letters they are instead

18088-499: The provinciality of their society, Americans did not seek to replicate what they perceived as the decadent societies of London and Paris. Nevertheless, to facilitate social intercourse of a literary nature where women were involved, Americans, led by certain strong-minded women, did draw upon and domesticate two models of such mixed intellectual company, one French and the other English. In America intellectually motivated women consciously emulated these two European models of sociability:

18240-448: The public and private spheres overlapped in the salons. Antoine Lilti ascribes to a similar viewpoint, describing the salons as simply 'institutions within Parisian high society'. When dealing with the salons, historians have traditionally focused upon the role of women within them. Works in the 19th and much of the 20th centuries often focused on the scandals and 'petty intrigues' of the salons. Other works from this period focused on

18392-451: The public sphere comes from Dena Goodman's The Republic of Letters , which claims that the 'public sphere was structured by the salon, the press and other institutions of sociability'. Goodman's work is also credited with further emphasizing the importance of the salon in terms of French history, the Republic of Letters and the Enlightenment as a whole, and has dominated the historiography of

18544-426: The qualities of politeness that were required for the participation in French high society. She was completely devoted to the management and organization of her salon, and of the patrons that frequented it. Madame Geoffrin could be defined by the ordered consistency of all her actions. "Regularity was part of a greater sense of organization that defined all aspects of Madame Geoffrin's life and every hour of her day, from

18696-415: The result of the singular marriage of Lucretius and Newton . When a handful of French freethinkers in the second quarter of the 18th century encountered the methodology and achievements of Newtonian science, experimental philosophy and unbelief were mixed together in an explosive cocktail, which gave its imbibers the means to develop a new science of man. Since Gay's work was published, his interpretation of

18848-751: The rival salons of the fictional duchesse de Guermantes and Madame Verdurin. He experienced himself his first social life in salons such as Mme Arman de Caillavet 's one, which mixed artists and political men around Anatole France or Paul Bourget ; Mme Straus ' one, where the cream of the aristocracy mingled with artists and writers; or more aristocratic salons like Comtesse de Chevigné 's, Comtesse Greffulhe 's, Comtesse Jean de Castellane's, Comtesse Aimery de La Rochefoucauld's, etc. Some late 19th- and early 20th-century Paris salons were major centres for contemporary music, including those of Winnaretta Singer (the princesse de Polignac), and Élisabeth, comtesse Greffulhe . They were responsible for commissioning some of

19000-416: The roles, duties, and activities of scholarship. Communication, for example, did not have to be from individual to individual; it could take place between academies, and pass thence to scholars, or be encapsulated in literary journals, to be diffused among the whole scholarly community. Literary agents, working for libraries but sharing the values of the learned community, demonstrate this professionalization on

19152-423: The romantic painter Francesco Hayez , composer Giuseppe Verdi and naturalist writers Giovanni Verga , Bruno Sperani and Matilde Serao . The salons served a very important function in 19th-century Italy, as they allowed young attendees to come into contact with more established figures. They also served as a method of avoiding government censorship, as a public discussion could be held in private. The golden age of

19304-537: The rules of etiquette of the salon which resembled the earlier codes of Italian chivalry . In Britain, mathematician and inventor Charles Babbage is credited with introducing the scientific soirée, a form of salon, from France. Babbage began hosting Saturday evening soirées in 1828. The history of the salon is far from straightforward. The salon has been studied in depth by a mixture of feminist , Marxist , cultural , social, and intellectual historians. Each of these methodologies focuses on different aspects of

19456-508: The salon culture was extant in the mid-18th century, represented by Julie Bondeli in Bern and Barbara Schulthess in Zürich, and the salon of Anna Maria Rüttimann-Meyer von Schauensee reached in influential role in the early 19th century. In Coppet Castle close to Lake Geneva , the exiled Parisian salonnière and author, Madame de Staël , hosted a salon which played a key role in the aftermath of

19608-422: The salon in Italy could be said to coincide with the pre-unification period, after which the rise of the newspaper replaced the salon as the main place for the Italian public to engage in the room of sex. Argentina 's most active female figure in the revolutionary process, Mariquita Sánchez , was Buenos Aires ' leading salonnière . She fervently embraced the cause of revolution, and her tertulia gathered all

19760-404: The salon' due to the academies' 'tradition of dissent' – something that lacked in the salon. But Landes' view of the salons as a whole is independent of both Elias' and Habermas' school of thought, insofar that she views the salons as a 'unique institution', that cannot be adequately described as part of the public sphere, or court society. Others, such as Steven Kale, compromise by declaring that

19912-434: The salon, and thus have varying analyses of its importance in terms of French history and the Enlightenment as a whole. Major historiographical debates focus on the relationship between the salons and the public sphere , as well as the role of women within the salons. Breaking down the salons into historical periods is complicated due to the various historiographical debates that surround them. Most studies stretch from

20064-494: The salonnière, for she gave order both to social relations among salon guests and to the discourse in which they engaged. When Marie-Thérèse Geoffrin launched her weekly dinners in 1749, the Enlightenment Republic of Letters found its ‘center of unity’. As a regular and regulated formal gathering hosted by a woman in her own home, the Parisian salon could serve as an independent forum and locus of intellectual activity for

20216-742: The salonnières' practice of politeness and gift giving. In relation to Madame Geoffrin, Lilti writes, "there exists numerous testimonials about the gifts that Madame Geoffrin bestowed upon the writers who regularly attend her salon, from the pieces of the silverware offered to the Suards, the silver pans and 2,000 gold écus presented to Thomas. He continues, "writers were not the only ones to benefit from this generosity. Madame Geoffrin received artists every Monday, securing contracts for them among high society collectors and even commissioned artwork for herself. Madame Geoffrin's notebooks mention that these artists also received regular gifts." For Lilti, Geoffrin's gift giving

20368-440: The salons after 1770 there emerged a radical critique of worldliness, inspired by Rousseau. These radicals denounced the mechanisms of polite sociability and called for a new model of the independent writer, who would address the public and the nation. Antoine Lilti argues that the salon never provided an egalitarian space. Rather, salons only provided a form of sociability where politeness and congeniality of aristocrats maintained

20520-411: The salons since its publication in 1994. Habermas' dominance in salon historiography has come under criticism from some quarters, with Pekacz singling out Goodman's Republic of Letters for particular criticism because it was written with 'the explicit intention of supporting [Habermas'] thesis', rather than verifying it. The theory itself, meanwhile, has been criticized for a fatal misunderstanding of

20672-460: The salons, and the coffeehouses in England – played a critical role in the emergence of what Habermas termed the public sphere , which emerged in cultural-political contrast to court society . Thus, while women retained a dominant role in the historiography of the salons, the salons received increasing amounts of study, much of it in direct response to, or heavily influenced by Habermas' theory. The most prominent defense of salons as part of

20824-559: The second half of the 18th century universities abandoned Aristotelian natural philosophy and Galenist medicine in favor of the mechanist and vitalist ideas of the moderns, so they placed a greater emphasis on learning by seeing. Everywhere in teaching science and medicine the monotonous diet of dictated lectures was supplemented and sometimes totally replaced by practical courses in experimental physics, astronomy, chemistry, anatomy, botany, materia medica , even geology and natural history . The new emphasis on practical learning meant that

20976-441: The social gathering and transforming it to meet their own needs, Madame Geoffrin and salonnières like her created a certain kind of social and intellectual space that could be exploited by the expanding group of intellectuals who were beginning to call themselves "philosophers." The historian Denise Yim loosely agrees with Goodman on the idea that salonnières did use their position for a more serious educational purpose. She writes, "It

21128-411: The tone, guided the conversation, and could influence the fortunes of those appearing there." She continues, "The most influential salonnière was perhaps Madame Geoffrin of the rue Saint-Honoré, who managed to attract the largest number of distinguished foreigners to her home." A lady of great renown, Geoffrin's salon catered to a wide range of foreign dignitaries and distinguished guests. "An invitation to

21280-430: The university now offered a much more welcoming environment to the Republic of Letters. Although most professors and teachers were still uninterested in membership, the ideological and pedagogical changes across the century created the conditions in which the pursuit of curiosity in the university world became much more possible and even attractive. Institutions – academies, journals, literary societies – took over some of

21432-655: The vernacular. One of the plans of this group in 1691 was the publication of translations from the Acta Eruditorum , the Journal des Sçavans , the Bibliothèque Universelle , and the Giornale de' Letterati . The outcome was the formation of The Young Students Library, containing Extracts and Abridgements of the Most Valuable Books Printed in England and in the Foreign Journals from the year Sixty-Five to

21584-409: The wedding, she gave birth to her first child, a daughter named also Marie Thérèse, and the future Marquise de La Ferté-Imbault. Her second child, a son, (who was to die later in childhood) was born two years later. It was not until Madame Geoffrin was over thirty years old that her connection to the salons would become established. Her husband, Pierre François Geoffrin died 20 December 1749, a fact that

21736-621: The widower Pierre François Geoffrin, a lieutenant-colonel of the National Guard and a prosperous general cashier of the Saint-Gobain Venetian mirror manufactory. Despite the fact that he was forty-nine years old, and Marie Thérèse was barely fourteen years old, Monsieur Geoffrin had inherited a substantial fortune from his first wife, and the chance for "an excellent settlement" was thought to be quite suitable by Madame Chemineau. The marriage took place on 19 July 1713. Nearly two years after

21888-574: The women had to be in well-connected families, either to money or to culture. In these mixed gatherings of nobles, high civil servants, writers, philosophers and artists, Jewish salonnières created a vehicle for Jewish integration, providing a context in which patrons and artists freely exchanged ideas. Henriette Lemos Herz, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Dorothea Mendelssohn Schlegel, Amalie Wolf Beer and at least twelve other salonnières achieved fame and admiration. In Spain , by María del Pilar Teresa Cayetana de Silva y Álvarez de Toledo, 13th Duchess of Alba at

22040-411: Was for the socialites who exchanged little gifts with each other, but instead made a financial relationship part of urbane sociability––especially when the rapport became more or less permanent in the form of allowances, such as the ones that Madame Geoffrin bestowed upon d'Alembert , Thomas, and the abbé Morellet." Madame Geoffrin's personal acquaintance with many other influential salonnières indicates

22192-478: Was hardly noticed by Mme Geoffrin's visitors—indeed, Madame Geoffrin hardly seemed to notice herself. Geoffrin was unable to receive a formalized education. It has been suggested, most notably by Dena Goodman, that the salon itself acted as a schoolhouse, where Geoffrin and other salonnières could train. Goodman writes, "For Madame Geoffrin, the salon was a socially acceptable substitute for a formal education denied her not just by her grandmother, but more generally by

22344-531: Was needed because, while the Republic of Letters was structured in theory by egalitarian principles of reciprocity and exchange, the reality of intellectual practice fell far short of this ideal. French men of letters in particular found themselves increasingly engaged in divisive quarrels rather than in constructive debate. With the establishment of Paris as the capital of the Republic, French men of letters had enriched traditional epistolary relations with direct verbal ones. That is, finding themselves drawn together by

22496-429: Was not a game, and the salonnières were not simply ladies of leisure killing time. On the contrary, Enlightenment salonnières were precisely those women who fought the general malaise of the period by taking up their métier." Madame Geoffrin's role was central to her identity as a French hostess. Historian Denise Yim writes: "The most distinguished salonnières were discerning women who selected their company with care, set

22648-403: Was nothing more than a reaffirmation of social inequities. He states, "the exchange of gifts, of course, was a common practice in all areas of high society, but it took on a particular social signification in the case of gifts given to men of letters, since the absence of reciprocity rendered the relationship asymmetrical. It was more about simply reinforcing a social bond through gift-giving, as it

22800-473: Was the first child of a bourgeois named Pierre Rodet, a valet de chambre for the Duchess of Burgundy, and Angélique Thérèse Chemineau, the daughter of a Parisian Banker. Marie Thérèse's mother died a year later in giving birth to her son Louis. At age seven, Marie Thérèse and her brother were taken to live with their grandmother Madame Chemineau on the rue Saint-Honoré. At thirteen, she was engaged to be married to

22952-653: Was through the reporting in periodical literature . Examples include Benjamin Franklin , who cultivated his perspicuous style in imitation of the Spectator . Jonathan Edwards 's manuscript Catalogue of reading reveals that he not only knew the Spectator before 1720 but was so enamored of Richard Steele that he tried to get his hands on everything: the Guardian , the Englishman ,

23104-424: Was used commonly to designate the gatherings of the " précieuses ", the intellectual and literary circles that formed around women in the first half of the 17th century. The first renowned salon in France was the Hôtel de Rambouillet not far from the Palais du Louvre in Paris , which its hostess, Roman-born Catherine de Vivonne, marquise de Rambouillet (1588–1665), ran from 1607 until her death. She established

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