During these dreadful times such social gatherings as had become the fashion among the refined people of Italy during the period of the Renaissance, were of course out of the question. Far happier in this respect was France, where the era of the “Salons” began, many of which became known throughout Europe, for the inspiration and refinement that spread out from them.
It was to the exceptional qualities of a young and noble-minded woman of Italian birth, that the first salon in France owed its origin and its distinctive character. This lady was Catherine Pisani, the daughter of Jean de Vivonne, Marquis of Pisani. Born at Rome in 1588, she married the French Marquis of Rambouillet, with whom she moved to Paris. Repelled by the gilded hollowness and license of the court of King Henry IV. she retired, about the year 1608, to her husband’s stately palace, which became famous as the “Hotel Rambouillet.” Its pride was a suite of salons or parlors, arranged for purposes of reception and so devised as to allow many visitors to move easily. With their draperies in blue and gold, their cozy corners, choice works of art, Venetian lamps, and crystal vases always filled with fragrant flowers, these rooms were indeed ideal places for social and literary gatherings.
As Amelia Gere Mason has described in a series of articles about the French Salons, written for the “Century Magazine” of 1890, Mm. de Rambouillet “sought to assemble here all that was most distinguished, whether for wit, beauty, talent, or birth, into an atmosphere of refinement and simple elegance which would tone down all discordant elements and raise life to the level of a fine art. There was a strongly intellectual flavor in the amusements, as well as in the discussions of this salon, and the place of honor was given to genius, learning, and good manners, rather than to rank. But the spirit was by no means purely literary. The exclusive spirit of the old aristocracy, with its hauteur and its lofty patronage, found itself face to face with fresh ideals. The position of the hostess enabled her to break the traditional barriers and form a society upon a new basis, but, in spite of the mingling of classes hitherto separated, the dominant life was that of the noblesse. Women of rank gave the tone and made the laws. Their code of etiquette was severe. They aimed to combine the graces of Italy with the chivalry of Spain. The model man must have a keen sense of honor and wit without pedantry; he must be brave, heroic, generous, gallant, but he must also possess good breeding and gentle courtesy. The coarse passions and depraved manners which had disgraced the gay court of Henry IV. were refined into subtle sentiments, and women were raised upon a pedestal to be respectfully and platonically adored. In this reaction from extreme license familiarity was forbidden, and language was subjected to a critical censorship.”
This definition of the salon of “the incomparable Arthenice”—an anagram for Mme. de Rambouillet, devised by two poets of renown—we find confirmed by the words of many distinguished men, who were fortunate enough to be admitted to this circle. Among them were Corneille, Descartes, and all the founders of the Académie Française.
“Do you remember,” so said the eminent Abbé Fléchier many years later, “the salons which are still regarded with so much veneration, where the spirit was purified, where virtue was revered under the name of the ‘incomparable Arthenice’; where people of merit and quality assembled who composed a select court, numerous without confusion, modest without constraint, learned without pride, polished without affectation?”—
The salon of Mme. de Rambouillet continued till the death of its mistress, the 27th of December, 1665, having been, as Saint-Simon writes, “a tribunal with which it was necessary to count, and whose decisions upon the conduct and reputation of people of the court and the world had great weight.”
There were other salons, modeled more or less after the present one. When the Hotel de Rambouillet was closed, Mademoiselle Madeleine de Scudéry held regular reunions by receiving her friends on Saturdays. Among this “Société du Samedi” were many authors and artists, who conversed upon all topics of the day, from fashion to politics, from literature and the arts to the last item of gossip. They read their works and vied with one another in improvising verses.
About the personality of Mlle. de Scudéry Abbé de Pure wrote: “One may call her the muse of our age and the prodigy of her sex. It is not only her goodness and her sweetness, but her intellect shines with so much modesty, her sentiments are expressed with so much reserve, she speaks with so much discretion, and all that she says is so fit and reasonable, that one cannot help both admiring and loving her. Comparing what one sees of her, and what one owes to her personally, with what she writes, one prefers, without hesitation, her conversation to her works. Although her mind is wonderfully great, her heart outweighs it. It is in the heart of this illustrious woman that one finds true and pure generosity, an immovable constancy, a sincere and solid friendship.”
Fearing to lose her liberty Mlle. de Scudéry never married. “I know,” she writes, “that there are many estimable men who merit all my esteem and who can retain a part of my friendship; but as soon as I regard them as husbands I regard them as masters, and so apt to become tyrants that I must hate them from that moment; and I thank the gods for giving me an inclination very much averse to marriage.”
Under the pseudonym of “Sappho” Mlle. de Scudéry was acknowledged as the first “blue-stocking” of France and of the world. Several of her novels, in which she aimed at universal accomplishments, were the delight of all Europe. Having studied mankind in her contemporaries, she knew how to analyze and describe their characters with fidelity and point.