Nearly every large establishment kept open house, dining from twenty to thirty persons every day. They dined at one, separated at three, were at the theatre at five, and returned with as many friends as possible—the more, the greater the reputation for hospitality and popularity. Under such circumstances, the mother had no time for the daughters, nor were the conversations at those dinners food for young, innocent girls—and innocence was the first requirement of a marriageable young woman.
The great convents were the Abbaye-aux-Bois and Penthemont, where the daughters of the wealthiest and highest families were educated. In those convents or seminaries, strange to say, the young girls were taught the most practical domestic duties, as well as dancing, music, painting, etc. Such teachers as Molé and Larrive gave instruction in declamation and reading, and Noverre and Dauberval in dancing; the teaching nuns were all from the best families. The most complete costumes, scenic decorations, and other equipments of a complete theatre were supplied, special hours being set aside for the play. However, much intriguing went on there, and many friendships and lifelong enmities were formed, which later led to serious troubles.
Often, from the midst of a group of young girls of from ten to fifteen years of age, one would be notified of her coming marriage with a man she had never seen, and whom, in all probability, she could not love, having given her heart to another. If it turned out to be an uncongenial marriage, a separate life would be the result, and, while still absolutely ignorant of the world, those young married women would fall prey to the charms of young gallants or men of quality, and a liaison would follow.
The difference between a liaison of the seventeenth century and one of the eighteenth led to one essential difference in the standards of social and moral etiquette; in the former period, a liaison meant nothing more censurable than an intimate friendship, a purely platonic love; the lover simply paid homage to the lady of his choice; it was an attraction of common intellectual interests and usually lasted for life; in the eighteenth century, a liaison was essentially immoral, rarely a union of interests, but rather one of passions and physical propensities. Such relations developed and fostered deceit, intrigues, infidelity, and rivalry, one woman endeavoring to allure the lover of another; affairs of that nature were the chief topic of conversation in social circles, and were soon reflected in every phase of the intelligent world. This will be seen in the study of the eighteenth century.
Chapter VIII
Salon Leaders
Mme. de Tencin, Mme. Geoffrin, Mme. du Deffand, Mlle. de Lespinasse, Mme. du Châtelet
In studying the vast numbers of salons of the eighteenth century, three types are discernible, each of which was prominent and in full sway throughout the century up to the Revolution. To the first class belong the great literary and philosophical salons which, though not political in nature, finally changed politics; such were the circles of Mme. de Tencin, Mme. Geoffrin, Mme. du Deffand, Mlle. de Lespinasse, Mme. Necker, Mme. d'Epinay, Mme. de Genlis; with these every literary student is familiar. The second class includes the smaller and less important literary, philosophical, and social salons—those of Mme. de Marchais, Mme. de Persan, Mme. de Villars, Mme. de Vaines, and of D'Alembert, D'Holbach, Helvétius. The third class is of a social nature exclusively, good breeding and good tone being the essentials; its conspicuous features were the dinners and suppers of Suard, Saurin, the Abbés Raynal and Morellet, of the Palais-Royal of Mme. de Blot, of the Temple of the Prince of Conti, those of Mme. de Beauvau, Mme. de Gramont, M. de La Popeliniére, and others.
The distinctions thus made will not hold throughout, but they facilitate the presentation of a subject that is exceedingly complicated. It may almost be said that each generation of the eighteenth century had a salon with a different physiognomy; those of 1710, 1730, 1760, and 1780 were all inspired by different motives, causes, and events, and were all led by women of different histories and aspirations, whose common idol was man, but whose ideas of what constituted a hero were as widely different as was the constitution of society in the respective periods. Not until the middle of the reign of Louis XIV. did social life become detached from Versailles, and, spreading out and circulating in a thousand hôtels, showed itself in all its force, splendor, and elegance. The celebrated women of the regency—Mme. de Prie, Mme. de Parabère, Mme. de Sabran—had no salon, while those of the Marquis d'Alluys and the Hôtels de Sully, de Duras, de Villars, and the suppers of Mme. de Chauvelin were of a distinctly different type from those of the earlier and the later periods.