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The Problem of the Enlightenment Salon

European History or Post-Revolutionary Politics

1755-1850

Nancy W. Collins

UCL

Department of History

2006
1

ABSTRACT

In the last twenty-five years, many historians have focused on the salon as a nexus of Enlightenment France, describing the institution as one of the 'origins of the French Revolution' and as 'central' to an understanding of modem French and

European societies.

In my thesis, I challenge this widely accepted argument and propose that our understanding of this institution must be revised. I demonstrate that the salon story is a nineteenth- century phenomenon rather than an eighteenth-century institution. I begin by demonstrating that the category of the salon has been used anachronistically and was not employed by the so-called salonnieres (i. e. Vichy du Deffand, Lespinasse, Geoffrin) or its members (i. e. Morellet, Delille, d'Alembert) in their extensive correspondence, of which thousands of letters are extant.

Eighteenth-century

individuals would be astonished and confused to learn that they held and participated in a salon institution.

Rather,

the concept - with its definitions of female- led gatherings in formal interiors - emerges in nineteenth-century published sources, particularly post-Revolutionary memoirs, which are narratives largely shaped by nostalgia and contemporary political partisanship. Often written by individuals who sought to revise views of the ancien regime with stories of a glorious past, these narratives buttressed their attempts to affect political change. Historians' overemphasis on these readily accessible sources has led to their reification of the salon and the attendant acceptance of such nineteenth-century conceptualisations of eighteenth-century lives.

It is the purpose of this thesis to analyse this historical problem, to study the evolving forms and functions of these eighteenth-century individuals' lives, and to investigate the development of this nineteenth-century mythmaking. At its'

conclusion, a clear distinction will emerge between the everyday

practices of these eighteenth-century individuals and the salon idealisation created during the nineteenth century.

2

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract 2

List of Illustrations 4

Acknowledgments

6 I. Historiographical claims about the French salon 7 a. A proto-democratic society in eighteenth-century Paris b.

From passive hosts to purposeful directors

c.

The popularity of this social ideal

H. Challenging the classic narrative of the Enlightenment salon 54 a.

Examining the usage of nineteenth-

and twentieth-century documents b. Problems with overreliance on these published sources c. Searching in vain for these salons III. Examining the everyday lives of Vichy du Deffand 102 and

Geoffrin

a.

The nights of Vichy du Deffand

b.

The business and commercial life of Geoffrin

c.

Discovering and experiencing Chanteloup

IV. Creating the salon rooms: material culture and 144 cosmopolitan sociability a. Architectural formation, competition, and development b. Sensational rooms and speaking architecture: salons, salles, sallettes, c. Confiscation and transformation of ancien regime spaces V. Writing and visualising the salon story in the 184 nineteenth century a.

Lemonnier and his imagined 1755 gatherings

b. Morellet and Delille's odes to pre-Revolutionary lives c. Bringing the story into practice: Junot and Ancelot

Bibliography

Archival

237

Primary 254

Secondary

293

Illustrations 363

3

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

1) Portrait of La Marquise du Vichy du Deffand, anonymous, 363

circa 1730
held in the collection of Yale University

2) Portrait of Madame Geofflin dans son cabinet, 1773 364

held in the collection of the Musee de Valence, reproduced in Paula Rea Radisich, Hubert Robert: Painted Spaces of the

Enlightenment

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998)

3) Gabriel-Hippolyte Alexandre Destailleur, Chateau de 365

Chanteloup,

circa 1775 held in the collection of the Bibliotheque Nationale

4) Jouvin de Rochefort Map, 1676 366

reproduced in Michael Dennis, Court and Garden: From the French Hotel to the City of Modern Architecture (Cambridge:

MIT Press, 1986)

5)

Jaillot Map, 1775 367

reproduced in Michael Dennis, Court and Garden: From the French Hotel to the City of Modern Architecture (Cambridge:

MIT Press, 1986)

6) Interior of Dining Room, Hotel de Botterel-Quintin, 368

circa 1770
reproduced in Les Vieux hotels de Paris: decorations exterieurs et interieurs (Paris, 1922)

7) Interior of Antichambre and Dining Room, unknown hotel, 368

circa 1780
print by Van Cleemputte, reproduced in Pierre Verlet, French Furniture and Interior Decoration of the 18`x'

Century,

translated by George Savage (London: Barrie and Rockliffe, 1967) 8)

Interior of Dining Room, Hotel Guimard, 1771 368

held in the collection of the Royal Institute of British Architects 4

9) Exterior and Interior of Hotel Guimard, 1771 369

reproduced in Michael Dennis, Court and Garden: From the French Hotel to the City of Modern Architecture (Cambridge:

MIT Press, 1986)

10) Exterior and Interior of the Pavillon Bagatelle, 1777 370

held in the collection of the Bibliotheque Nationale circa 1770

12) Venus Stove in the Dining Room of the Chateau du Marais, 372

circa 1787
remains at the Chateau du Marais, St. Cheron

13) Anicet-Charles-Gabriel Lemonnier, Premiere lecture de 373

l'Orphelin de la Chine de Voltaire dans le salon de madame

Geoffiin, 1812

held in the collection of the Rouen Museum

14) Carmontelle, Portrait of Vichy du Deffand, circa 1812 374

reproduced in J. G. Cotta, editor, Almanach des dames, pour l'an 1813 (Paris and Fuchs: Levrault Freres, 1813)

15) Robineau, Portrait of Geoffrin, circa 1812 375

reproduced in J. G. Cotta, editor, Almanach des dames, pour

Van 1813 (Paris and Fuchs: Levrault Freres, 1813)

16) Marguerite-Virginie Ancelot, Paintings of her salon, 1824 376

reproduced in Marguerite-Virginie Ancelot, Un Salon de

Paris. 1824, i 1864 (Paris: E. Dentu, 1866)

5

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am deeply grateful to my supervisor, Rebecca L.

Spang,

for her unfailing support of this project. Her advice, guidance, and constructive criticism have been invaluable in all aspects of this thesis.

Several historians of France were generous with

their expertise on a range of subjects. I received guidance on nostalgiaquotesdbs_dbs26.pdfusesText_32

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