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Parisian
Salons
~Background
~Salons of
Enlightenment
~Madame de Stäel
~Salons
of the Restoration
~The Salons
of Victor Hugo
Influence
of Printed Materials
~Pre-Revolutionary
Timeline
~Post-Revolutionary Timeline
~Memoires
Defining
the Parisians
~Parisians
Viewed by Foreigners
~Parisians Viewed by
Themselves
~Paris Fashion
Bibliography
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Was
Victor Hugo himself ever part of the Parisian salon scene?
Following the Restoration
and the three-day-long July revolution in 1830, many Parisians
believed "high society" no longer existed. The
social climbing
bourgeoisie began to take advantage of the fallen
dynasty, signaling the demise of civilized society. Nevertheless,
the Parisian salons still remained the place for witty,
stimulating conversation and were generally run by women.
However,
a few salons such as Victor Hugo's Cénacle
of Romantic writers at place Royale were attended almost exclusively
by males and were not led by a salonnière. Hugo's
literary salon was dedicated primarily to readings
and recitations and did not attract an aristocratic crowd.
(Yet, it should be noted that Hugo was raised as a royalist
by his mother and it was not until around 1822 that he began
to broaden his political views.)
Hugo's salon
of the time was labeled, "Romantic," which meant his guests
were "rowdy, vulgar, and devoid of any respect for traditional
values"
(Atwood, 128). In a Romantic salon
such as Hugo's, it was not uncommon for the guests to dress
"unconventionally" in medieval or Renaissance clothes, smoke
cigars, leave their hats on inside, and lounge about with
their feet on the tables. Charles Dickens visited Hugo's salon
once and described the scene as being "a most romantic show....like
a chapter out of one of his own books" (Atwood,
128). In a room full of antique armor, tapestries, coffers,
and canopied thrones, romantic plays, poetry and other literary
works were recited and received with great emotion by all
those present.
Young anxious
Romantic writers hoping to follow in the footsteps of Hugo
and move forward with their careers were known to linger about
Hugo's salon. Comte Antoine Apponyi, a French ambassador
at the Austrian embassy said these young writers "flatter
Hugo from morning to night and revere him like a God." This
simply makes Hugo "vain and fatuous beyond all belief" (Atwood,
136).
Hugo's
reference to the Parisian salon in
Les Misérables
In Hugo's epic
novel, Les Misérables of 1862, he tells a complex
story inspired by personal philosophical and life experiences.
Specifically, in chapter one and three of book three of
Marius, Hugo transports us to the royalist salon
of Madame de T. The character Marius Pontmercy is forced
to visit this salon regularly with his grandfather
M. Gillernormand and aunt. One wonders in reading this excerpt
from the novel whether or not the young character Marius is
not actually Hugo himself. Through the eyes and mind of Marius,
Hugo may be retelling to the reader the story of a salon
visit he made as a young boy with his mother.
"The salon
of Madame de T. was all that Marius Pontmercy knew of the
world...These antique faces and these biblical faces mingled
in the child's mind with his Old Testament, which he was
learning by heart, and when they are all present, seated
in a circle about a dying fire, dimly lighted by a green-shaded
lamp, with their stern profiles, their grey or white hair,
their long dresses of another age, in which mournful colors
could only be distinguished, at rare intervals dropping
a few words which were at once majestic and austere, the
little Marius looked upon them with startling eyes thinking
that he saw, not women but patriarchs and magi, not real
beings, but phantoms" (Hugo, 537).
In fact at the
end of chapter three, book three of Marius, Hugo actually
writes that in the course of his historical narrative he felt
it necessary to stop and make a note of "some of the singular
lineaments of that society now unknown" (Hugo,
542). The era of the royalist salon registers
for him a memory of his dear mother. Although Hugo's political
beliefs as a democratic Republican at the time of the novel
differ greatly from those of his mother and other royalists,
Hugo does not write of them harshly. He says:
"We
may smile at it, but we can neither despise it nor hate it.
It was the France of former times" (Hugo,
542).
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