The Enlightenment Salons: Centers of Cultural Exchange

On a Wednesday evening in the 1750s, a crowd of about fifty people — writers, scientists, financiers, foreign diplomats, and a few well-connected women — gathered in the drawing room of Madame Geoffrin on the Rue Saint-Honoré. The Wednesday dinners, which were dedicated to the discussion of science and industry, were the more serious of her two weekly gatherings, and the conversation could turn on a new paper by a mathematician, a new chemical experiment, or a new mechanical invention. The regulars included Diderot, d’Alembert, Helvétius, d’Holbach, Montesquieu when he was in Paris, and a sprinkling of foreign visitors. The hostess sat in her armchair, listened, and kept the conversation going. She had the kind of memory that an editor would envy — she remembered what you said last time, she remembered what you had written, and she remembered who had said what to whom. She was, in her own description, “a sort of conduit pipe” through which the new ideas of the age passed from one to another.

The salons of the eighteenth century were the most important cultural institutions of the European Enlightenment. They were regular gatherings of intellectuals, writers, scientists, and aristocrats in the drawing rooms of wealthy patrons, and they provided a forum for the discussion of the new ideas that were transforming the intellectual and political life of the modern world. The French salons in particular were central to the development of the French Enlightenment, but similar institutions existed in other European countries, and they were an important part of the cultural infrastructure of the Enlightenment as a whole.

The salon is one of those institutions that looks, in retrospect, like a natural product of the social conditions of the eighteenth century. It depended on a class of wealthy women with the leisure, the education, and the social connections to host the gatherings; it depended on a class of intellectuals and writers with the need for patronage and the willingness to perform in public; and it depended on a political culture in which the drawing room was one of the few places in which the new ideas could be discussed without immediate censorship. The convergence of these conditions in eighteenth-century France is one of the reasons the French Enlightenment was, in some respects, the most successful of the European enlightenments.

The origins of the salon

The salon as a cultural institution had its origins in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, when wealthy aristocratic women began to host regular gatherings in their drawing rooms for the discussion of literature, philosophy, and the arts. The salon developed in parallel with the other cultural institutions of the early modern period — the academies, the literary societies, the court theaters, and the various other venues for the display of the new learning.

The Italian and French beginnings

The earliest salons were Italian, and they were connected to the court culture of the Italian city-states. The salon of the Venetian intellectual Cassiano dal Pozzo in the seventeenth century, the salon of the Roman intellectual Christina of Sweden (the former queen of Sweden, who had converted to Catholicism and retired to Rome), and the various other Italian gatherings of the time were important precursors of the more developed salon culture of the eighteenth century. The Italian salons were, however, more like courts than like the Parisian salons of the later period; they depended on a single patron and a single cultural authority, and they were less open to the broader public.

The French salon developed in the seventeenth century with the gatherings hosted by such women as Madame de Rambouillet, Madame de Sévigné, and Mademoiselle de Scudéry. The précieuses — the women who presided over the early French salons — were known for their refinement, their wit, and their ability to create a cultural space in which the new ideas of the age could be discussed and developed. The Cabinet de la Voiture of Madame de Rambouillet, which met in the 1620s and 1630s, is the conventional starting point of the French salon tradition. The précieuses were not, however, philosophes. Their concerns were with the refinement of language, the analysis of feeling, and the codification of the social and sexual codes of the aristocracy. The salon that Voltaire and d’Alembert attended was a very different kind of institution from the salon that the précieuses had presided over a century earlier.

The eighteenth-century salon

The eighteenth-century salon was a more developed institution than its seventeenth-century predecessor. The most famous salons of the century — those of Madame Geoffrin, Madame d’Épinay, Madame du Deffand, the Baron d’Holbach, and others — were gathering places for the most important writers, scientists, and philosophers of the age, and they played a central role in the development of the new philosophy.

The eighteenth-century salon had several distinctive features. It was regular — most salons met weekly or fortnightly, and they were attended by a relatively stable group of regulars. It was selective — admission to the most prestigious salons was a sign of social and intellectual distinction, and the hostesses of the great salons had considerable influence over who was admitted. It was intellectually rigorous — the discussions in the salons were serious and substantive, and the salon hostesses were often as well-read and as intellectually capable as the most famous writers of the day.

The major French salons

The French salons of the eighteenth century were the most important of their kind in Europe, and they played a central role in the development of the French Enlightenment.

The salon of Madame Geoffrin

The salon of Madame Geoffrin (1699–1777) was one of the most famous of the eighteenth century. Madame Geoffrin, the wife of a wealthy financier, began to host regular gatherings in her Paris home in the 1730s, and the salon quickly became one of the most important intellectual gathering places of the century. The salon met on Mondays for the discussion of philosophy, literature, and the arts, and on Wednesdays for the discussion of science and industry. The members of the salon included Voltaire, Montesquieu, Diderot, d’Alembert, Helvétius, d’Holbach, and many other leading figures of the French Enlightenment.

Madame Geoffrin was an important patron of the arts and a major supporter of the Encyclopédie and of the other great collaborative projects of the French Enlightenment. She corresponded with Catherine the Great of Russia, who became a friend and patron, and she played an important role in the development of the international dimensions of the French Enlightenment. Catherine’s letters to Geoffrin were, in their own right, an interesting document of enlightened absolutism: the Russian autocrat asked the French salonnière for advice on the management of the Russian intellectual class, and Geoffrin gave it. The relationship is one of the more remarkable trans-European cultural connections of the century.

The salon of Madame du Deffand

The salon of Madame du Deffand (1697–1780) was another important gathering place of the French Enlightenment. Madame du Deffand was a brilliant conversationalist with a wide circle of friends in the intellectual and aristocratic worlds of Paris. Her salon attracted many of the same figures as Madame Geoffrin’s, and it was known for the wit and the elegance of its conversation.

Madame du Deffand corresponded with the English writer Horace Walpole, with whom she had a long and celebrated friendship. Her letters to Walpole are an important source for the social and intellectual history of the French Enlightenment, and they are also among the most brilliant examples of French prose of the period. The letters reveal a sharp and pessimistic intelligence, increasingly troubled by her own blindness and by the failure of the salon culture to deliver the philosophical satisfactions it had promised. The late correspondence is one of the great documents of Enlightenment disillusionment.

The salon of Madame d’Épinay

The salon of Madame d’Épinay (1726–1783) was another important gathering place of the French Enlightenment. Madame d’Épinay was the friend and patron of Rousseau, and her salon was an important venue for the discussion of the new philosophy. The relationship between Madame d’Épinay and Rousseau eventually broke down, and the resulting quarrel is one of the famous episodes in the history of the French Enlightenment. The story of the quarrel, told from both sides in the various memoirs and correspondences of the time, provides a vivid picture of the social and intellectual dynamics of the salon world. Rousseau, as was his custom, eventually quarreled with most of his patrons and friends, and the quarrel with Madame d’Épinay is one of the more damaging of these quarrels. The fact that Rousseau was, by general agreement, mostly in the wrong did not, of course, prevent him from composing his own version of the story.

The salon of the Baron d’Holbach

The salon of the Baron d’Holbach (1723–1789) was the center of the more radical wing of the French Enlightenment. D’Holbach, a German-born naturalized French nobleman, was a committed materialist and atheist, and his salon was the gathering place for the French materialists — La Mettrie, Helvétius, d’Holbach himself — and for the more radical critics of the established order. The salon met regularly in d’Holbach’s house in the Rue Royale, and it was the venue for the development of the most thoroughgoing materialist and atheist philosophy of the French Enlightenment. The System of Nature (1770) of d’Holbach, one of the most radical works of the period, was the product of the discussions in the salon. D’Holbach’s translation of German works on chemistry was an important contribution to the development of French chemistry, and the salon was, in addition, a serious working environment for the natural sciences as well as for philosophy.

The German and English salons

The salon culture was not limited to France. Similar institutions developed in Germany, in England, and in other European countries, and they played an important role in the development of the Enlightenment in these countries.

The German salons

The German salons developed in the second half of the eighteenth century, in part under the influence of the French example. The most famous German salons were those of Berlin, Hamburg, and the other major cities of the German states. The Berlin salons of Rahel Varnhagen and Henriette Herz, in particular, were important gathering places for the Jewish and Christian intellectuals of the German Enlightenment.

The German salons were often more focused on literature and music than the French salons were, and they played an important role in the development of German Romanticism. The conversation in the German salons was also often more focused on personal and emotional matters than the conversation in the French salons, and the German salon was an important venue for the development of a more intimate and more personal style of intellectual exchange. The German salon was, in this respect, a more literary institution than the French salon, and the difference has had a substantial effect on the subsequent intellectual history of the two countries.

The English salons

The English salon — or, more properly, the English coffeehouse, since the English equivalent of the French salon was often the coffeehouse rather than the private drawing room — was an important cultural institution of the British Enlightenment. The coffeehouses of London, and especially those of the Covent Garden area, were gathering places for the writers, politicians, and intellectuals of the British Enlightenment, and they played an important role in the development of the British public sphere.

The English coffeehouses were often more politically focused than the French salons, and they were an important venue for the discussion of the political and economic questions of the day. The Tatler and Spectator of Addison and Steele, two of the most important periodicals of the early eighteenth century, were closely connected to the coffeehouse culture of London. Will’s Coffee House in Covent Garden was the gathering place of the writers of the Augustan age; Button’s was the gathering place of the politicians; Lloyd’s was the gathering place of the merchants and the underwriters. The coffeehouse was, in its way, the English version of the French salon, and the difference between the two institutions is one of the more revealing differences between the French and the English Enlightenment.

The cultural functions of the salon

The salon performed a number of important cultural functions in the Enlightenment.

The exchange of ideas

The most important function of the salon was the exchange of ideas. The salon brought together people of different backgrounds and different perspectives, and it provided a forum in which new ideas could be discussed, tested, and disseminated. The salon was an important venue for the development of the new philosophy, and the works of many of the major figures of the Enlightenment were first presented in the salons. The Lettres philosophiques of Voltaire, for example, were first discussed in the salon of Madame Geoffrin before they were published. The Preliminary Discourse of d’Alembert to the Encyclopédie was worked out in conversations in the salons of Paris.

The patronage of the arts

The salon was also an important vehicle for the patronage of the arts. The hostesses of the great salons were often wealthy and well-connected, and they used their resources to support writers, scientists, and artists. The patronage of the salons was an important source of income for many of the major figures of the Enlightenment, and the salons were an important venue for the production and dissemination of the new culture.

The formation of the public

The salon was an important venue for the formation of the modern public sphere. The salon brought together people of different social classes, and it provided a space in which the public could discuss matters of common concern. The salon was an important precursor of the modern public sphere, with its newspapers, magazines, and other media of public discussion. Jürgen Habermas, in The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1962), made the salon one of the central institutions of his account of the rise of the bourgeois public sphere, and the argument has been substantially developed in the subsequent literature. Dena Goodman’s The Republic of Letters (1994) is the standard account of the relationship between the salons and the development of the public sphere in the French Enlightenment.

The emancipation of women

The salon was also an important venue for the emancipation of women. The hostesses of the great salons were often women of great intellectual and social distinction, and they used their positions to support the cause of women’s education and the recognition of women’s rights. The salon was one of the few spaces in eighteenth-century society in which women could exercise significant intellectual and social influence, and it was an important venue for the development of modern feminism. The argument has been developed in different ways by Dena Goodman, Erica Harth, and other scholars. The fact that the salon was, in significant part, a female institution is one of the more striking features of the Enlightenment, and the fact that the hostesses of the salons were among the most influential cultural figures of their age is one of the more striking features of the cultural history of the eighteenth century.

The legacy of the salon

The salon was an important institution in the cultural life of the Enlightenment, and it has left a lasting legacy in the modern world.

The modern public sphere

The contemporary public sphere — with its newspapers, magazines, broadcast media, and internet forums — is, in important respects, a descendant of the salon. The salon was an important precursor of the modern public sphere, and the principles of free discussion, the exchange of ideas, and the formation of public opinion that were developed in the salons have remained basic features of contemporary democratic culture.

The cultural institution of the salon

The salon as a cultural institution has not disappeared from the contemporary world. Cultural salons, literary salons, and intellectual gatherings continue to exist in many cities, and they continue to perform some of the same functions that the eighteenth-century salons performed. The principles of intellectual exchange, of cultural patronage, and of the formation of public opinion that were developed in the eighteenth-century salons remain important features of contemporary cultural life.

The recognition of women’s cultural influence

The role of women in the salon culture of the eighteenth century has been an important resource for the modern feminist movement. The women who hosted the great salons — Madame Geoffrin, Madame d’Épinay, Madame du Deffand, the various other hostesses of the period — were among the most influential cultural figures of their age, and their example has been an important source of inspiration for the modern recognition of women’s cultural and intellectual contributions.

The international dimensions of the Enlightenment

The salon was an important venue for the development of the international dimensions of the Enlightenment. The salons of Paris, Berlin, and London were connected to each other through correspondence and through the circulation of books, pamphlets, and periodicals, and they helped to create a sense of shared intellectual endeavor that transcended national boundaries. The contemporary international intellectual community — with its conferences, journals, and electronic networks — is, in important respects, a descendant of the international salon culture of the eighteenth century.

The salon is one of those institutions that the modern world is inclined to romanticize. The eighteenth-century salon was a real institution, with real hostesses, real regulars, and real conversations. The fact that the modern intellectual world has been substantially democratized — that the great conversations are no longer confined to a few privileged drawing rooms — is a real gain. The fact that the modern intellectual world has lost some of the qualities of the salon culture — the personal acquaintance of the participants, the long-form conversation, the combination of intellectual seriousness with social grace — is a real loss. The contemporary intellectual culture is, in many ways, the better for being more accessible. It is also, in some ways, the poorer for being less like a salon.