UVL fll 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 analysethis historical problem, to study the evolving forms and functions of these eighteenth-centuryindividuals' lives, and to investigate the developmentof this nineteenth-centurymythmaking. At its' conclusion, a clear distinction will emergebetween the everyday practices of theseeighteenth-century individuals and the salon idealisation createdduring the nineteenthcentury. 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-centuryParis b. From passivehosts to purposeful directors c. The popularity of this social ideal H. Challenging the classic narrative of the Enlightenment salon 54 a. Examining the usageof nineteenth- and twentieth-century documents b. Problemswith overrelianceon thesepublished sources c. Searchingin vain for thesesalons III. Examining the everyday lives of Vichy du Deffand 102 and Geoffrin a. The nights of Vichy du Deffand b. The businessand commercial life of Geoffrin c. Discovering and experiencingChanteloup 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 odesto 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, reproducedin 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 reproducedin Michael Dennis, Court and Garden: From the French Hotel to the City of Modern Architecture (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1986) 5) Jaillot Map, 1775 367 reproducedin 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, translatedby 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 reproducedin 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 11) Dolphin Fountain in the Dining Room of the Hotel Chätelet, 371 circa 1770 remains at the Hotel Chätelet,rue de Varenne 12) Venus Stove in the Dining Room of the Chateaudu Marais, 372 circa 1787 remains at the Chateaudu Marais, St. Cheron 13) Anicet-Charles-GabrielLemonnier, Premiere lecture de 373 l'Orphelin de la Chine de Voltaire dans le salon de madameGeoffiin, 1812 held in the collection of the Rouen Museum 14) Carmontelle, Portrait of Vichy du Deffand, circa 1812 374 reproducedin 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 reproducedin 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 reproducedin 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 aspectsof 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, Hotel de Röhan), and Margaret K. Powell and Susan 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 Scholarshave long been fascinatedwith the French salon, an institution that has been describedas regular gatheringsof individuals for the purposes of engaging in free thinking, proto- political debate,and constructive criticism. Many prominent historians have characterisedthe salons as ideal places of intellectual production, a form of sociability that emergedin the decadesimmediately preceding the French Revolution. Over the courseof severalyears, on fixed days and at set hours, the most enlightenedindividuals -a mix of academicians,city leaders,and international visitors - met behind closed doors in Parisian houses. These settingsprovided the privacy neededto evaderoyal eavesdropperslurking in cafes,lodges, and academies. It was in these securelocations that participants establishedtheir independentpositions, testedtheir philosophical innovations, and shapedthe attitudes that led to the French Revolution. Severalacademics have analysedthe exceptional origins of the salon, whereby a few elite women set out to createa new institution, taking considerablerisk to transform their homes from sites of leisured sociability into seriousworking places. They have studied the unique stepsthese women took to asserttheir political independencefrom the aristocraticmen who hadlong 7 dominatedthe public realm of France (and Europe), and have elaboratedon the economic and social lengths that thesewomen went to in order to ensureits success. In detailing how these salonnieres selected the themes, priorities, and participants, scholarshave accordedthese leaders a high