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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 nostalgia work and nineteenth-century material culture from Leora

Auslander,

references to eighteenth-century Parisian housing and construction from Jean-Francois Cabestan; information on the life and work of Gabriel Lemonnier from Alain Pougetoux; advice on eighteenth-century archives from Robert Damton; general advice and a photocopy of an address book in private collection from Dena Goodman; training in examining prints and engravings from Tom Gretton; direction on Jacques Delille from Edouard Guitton; materials on eighteenth-century food and eating practices from Mary and Phil Hyman; references to several books, journals, and correspondence from Colin Jones; information on eighteenth- century interiors and object collections from Alexia LeBeurre; and especially warm encouragement from Sarah Maza.

Specialists

in eighteenth-century sources and materials took considerable time to lead me through their collections, answering many questions along the way, most notably Jacky Plault (Archives Nationales), Francoise Aujogue (Archives prives, Archives Nationales), Denis Lieppe (Centre de Roland Mousnier, Universite de Paris IV-Sorbonne), Monique

Pontel

(Ministere de la Culture), Isabelle Derens (Topographie

Parisienne,

Walker (Yale University). I am also highly appreciative of financial support from the American Society for Eighteenth-

Century Studies, Huntington Library, Institute of Historical

Research, Royal Historical Society, the Society for the Study of French History, University College London, University of London,

and

Yale University.

6

Historiographical claims about the French salon

Scholars have long been fascinated with the French salon, an institution that has been described as regular gatherings of individuals for the purposes of engaging in free thinking, proto- political debate, and constructive criticism. Many prominent historians have characterised the salons as ideal places of intellectual production, a form of sociability that emerged in the decades immediately preceding the French Revolution. Over the course of several years, on fixed days and at set hours, the most enlightened individuals -a mix of academicians, city leaders, and international visitors - met behind closed doors in Parisian houses. These settings provided the privacy needed to evade royal eavesdroppers lurking in cafes, lodges, and academies. It was in these secure locations that participants established their independent positions, tested their philosophical innovations, and shaped the attitudes that led to the French Revolution.

Several

academics have analysed the exceptional origins of the salon, whereby a few elite women set out to create a new institution, taking considerable risk to transform their homes from sites of leisured sociability into serious working places. They have studied the unique steps these women took to assert their political independence from the aristocratic men who had long 7 dominated the public realm of France (and Europe), and have elaborated on the economic and social lengths that these women went to in order to ensure its success. In detailing how these salonnieres selected the themes, priorities, and participants, scholars have accorded these leaders a high degree of historical significance for the salon's considerable results.

According

to leading scholars of the phenomenon, the leadership and location of the salons attracted a diverse range of participants, including those who had been excluded from the official corridors of power. The salonnieres decided who they would allow into their homes based on the criteria of intellectual promise, rather than social distinction. Therefore, it became irrelevant whether the potential participant was a fledgling writer or the largest land-holding duke. The result was a gathering organised around ideas, where an egalitarian spirit prevailed over traditional hierarchies of authority. It was a novel type of arrangement, with a high degree of social mobility among the ordres, an alternative model to the corporate structure of royal society. During the hours of the salon, these individuals escaped from the status quo and began imagining themselves as part of a radically different kind of political body.

Neither

a legislature, nor an academy, nor a royal court, this group of individuals functioned as the Enlightenment salon. So dominant did the participants become that they emerged as the leading arbiters and political actors of their era, displacing even the 8 royal courts that migrated between Versailles, Fontainebleau, and the rural residences of the monarchy. Their model of public opinion, emerging from salon conversation, overtook the displays of power provided by the king and his circles. Intellectual and cultural renewal gathered momentum: change, progress, and liberal thought came to be valued, finely crafted theories of reason and merit took hold; and confidence in individual achievement became highly esteemed. Their innovative ideas eventually swayed public opinion in favour of egalitarian ideologies -not just in their own city, but well beyond. Collectively, their ideas brought about radical reform in their own country, which ultimately shaped the revolutionary ideology of the late eighteenth century and led to the birth of the modem world. However, there is a problem with this widely accepted argument, and it is the purpose of this thesis to propose a different understanding of the salon. As this study will demonstrate, in the eighteenth century, a salon was not a social institution, or even a type of gathering, but rather a novel style of room. In other words, a salon was a physical setting and an architectural innovation in the eighteenth century. It is important that we take this into account and thus materialise our understanding of eighteenth- century sociability. 9 This questioning of the Enlightenment salon is not intended to challenge the vast majority of research on elite sociability in eighteenth-century

France. Scholars like Robert Darnton, Marc

Fumaroli, Margaret Jacob, Sarah Maza, and Daniel Roche, among others, have conceptualised elite networking and interaction in vivid and lively descriptions. From their body of work, we can gain a clear understanding of a wide range of sociability as seen from a diverse range of perspectives including literary circles, aristocratic networking, social clubs, popular culture, and material objects.

Instead, this thesis is focused on reframing our

understanding of the eighteenth-century salon. This will include ' See Robert Damton, The Literary Underground of the Old Regime (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982); Marc Fumaroli, L'Art de la conversation: anthologie (Paris: Classiques Gamier, 1997); Margaret C. Jacob, The Radical Enlightenment: Pantheists, Freemasons and

Republicans

(London: Allen & Unwin, 1981); Sarah C. Maza, Private Lives and Public A, fairs: The Causes Celebres of Prerevolutionary

France

(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993); Daniel Roche, Les Republicains des lettres: gens de culture et Lumieres au XVIIIe siecle (Paris: Fayard, 1988). In addition, see Pierre-Yves Beaurepaire and

Margaret

C. Jacob, L'Espace desfrancs-masons: une sociabilite europeene au X Ville siecle (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes,

2003);

Gregory S. Brown, A Field of Honor: Writers, Court Culture, and

Public

Theater in French Literary Life from Racine to the Revolution,

Gutenberg

e-text (New York. Columbia University Press, 2002); Roger

Chartier,

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