In the eighteenth century the salons are proud to represent a democracy of genius. Madame Geoffrin was the daughter of a valet de chambre and the wife of a manufacturer; Madame Necker was the daughter of a Swiss parson; and Mlle. de Lespinasse, a foundling, who had been ‘humble companion’ to Madame du Deffand, and who had not means sufficient to entertain her guests at dinner. Wit, intellect, and personality, rather than noble birth, became the key to social success.
(3) The chief staple of entertainment offered by the salons is conversation, literary or philosophical in character. Other amusements, such as Castiglione describes at Urbino, are not necessarily excluded, and, in France, dancing, excursions, card-playing, and gaming were popular in various salons and at various times. But conversation always reasserted itself in the end. Discussion was stimulated by the reading of original poems, essays, sermons, and plays. The criticism of these, especially of the plays, was of no mean importance in forming the spirit of French literature. In particular the salon gives birth to certain minor forms of literature, epistles, epigrams, extempore verses of all kinds, ‘thoughts,’ maxims, bons mots, ‘portraits,’ and éloges;[31] but of more importance than these is its unconscious formative influence on such arts as letter-writing, biography, and all manner of anecdotal writing.
(4) The friendships of the salon are of peculiar depth and warmth, developing occasionally into passion, but always Platonic rather than domestic in their expression. Thus the salon, in which woman assumes the throne, and queens it over a coterie (chiefly men) is perhaps the last phase of the Italian court with its gallantries and lady-worship. It passed on to the French salon that note of sentiment and Platonic love which is found in Il Cortegiano, and which becomes characteristic of Sappho Scudéry and the later seventeenth century. In the eighteenth century this sentimental friendship united with the more practical system of patronage, and resulted in a type of relationship which eludes definition, for, on the one hand, it is at times so utilitarian as to savour of philanthropy, and, on the other, it may develop into a grande passion, and compare itself to Abelard and Héloïse. Examples of it are the various relations existing between Madame Geoffrin and Marmontel, Madame du Deffand and d’Alembert, Madame du Deffand and Horace Walpole, Madame de Boufflers and David Hume, Mlle. de Lespinasse and d’Alembert, Mlle. de Lespinasse and Guibert, Madame Necker and Edward Gibbon.
(5) The hostess of the salon is invariably the subject of ideal descriptions, ‘tributes’ which recite her charm as a hostess, her merits as a patron, and her general superiority to the Muses. From Castiglione’s eulogy of Elizabeth Gonzaga, through the Hôtel de Rambouillet (where Malherbe was a kind of poet laureate), down to the death of Mlle. de Lespinasse, whose genius was celebrated by d’Alembert in the Tombeau de Mlle. de Lespinasse, this is an almost unfailing result of salon life.
Such are, then, the permanent marks by which we may detect that interplay of the social and the literary life in what, for want of a better term, we call the salon. There are two features of the life manifested only at certain times which it is not proper to include, though they are more generally attributed to the salons than any that have been mentioned. They are transitory phases; but they must be briefly considered, if only by way of avoiding false assumptions.
The women of the salons are usually thought of as femmes savantes, or ‘learned ladies,’ who affect a learning which has no basis in fact. Such female pedants were common figures in the salons of a certain period. The depiction of them by Molière is no more exaggerated than the purposes of comic art demand. It must be further admitted that such women may appear now and again in the salons of any period; we shall meet with a few in the pages of this volume. But they are not common in the best salons of the best periods. Neither in the beginning, nor in the eighteenth century, were the hostesses of the salon what we ordinarily mean by the phrase femmes savantes. Of Madame de Rambouillet, for example, M. Vourciez writes:[32] ‘Ce sont les aliments les plus solides qu’elle digérait sans prétention à devenir une “femme savante,” car Balzac eût pu lui adresser à elle aussi le compliment qu’il fit à Madame des Loges: “Vous savez une infinité de choses rares, mais vous n’en faites pas la savante, et ne les avez pas apprises pour tenir école.”’ As for the women of the next century, they assisted their friends chiefly by qualities which have little to do with book-learning, by superb intelligence, wit, sympathy, and good taste. They made no pretence to erudition. Indeed they rather piqued themselves on their ignorance of it. To mistake Madame Geoffrin, who said she could not spell, and Madame du Deffand, who was bored by a savant, for a woman like Armande or Bélise is to have done with all distinctions at once. It is to confound Prospero with Polonius.
It is no less true that the women of the salons were not permanently précieuses ridicules. Preciosity had its day; it did its work (which was by no means contemptible); and it was laughed out of existence. There were no précieuses in 1750. Indeed the caustic penetration of Madame du Deffand,[33] the homely wit of Madame Geoffrin, and the romantic ardour of Mlle. de Lespinasse are at equal removes from the conceits and the mincing niceties of the earlier salons. ‘Il n’y a que le premier pas qui coûte,’ said Madame du Deffand of Saint Denis walking with his severed head in his hands; ‘Je suis une poule qui ai couvé des œufs de canard,’ said Madame Geoffrin of herself and her daughter; ‘Presque personne n’a besoin d’être aimé,’ said Mlle. de Lespinasse to her faithless lover. Is this the language of preciosity?
CHAPTER III
The Eighteenth Century Salon
A salon is not a mere literary club. It is something other than a group of men and women gathered in a drawing-room to discuss literature or meet a poet. It aims to exert a creative influence in the literary world. It does not concern itself with literature as a finished product to be studied, but with literature as a growing thing that may be trained. Hence it gets behind the product to the producer, and seeks to influence the characters and ideas out of which books are formed. It is an informal academy. Its aim is private in that it is directly concerned with improving the condition of authors, and public in that it attempts to mould public opinion.