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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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"The
traits which strike us most forcibly in the lives and
characters of the women of the early salons are delicacy
and sensibility; they colored their minds, ran through
their literacy pastimes and gave a distinctive flavor to their
conversation. It was these qualities, added to a decided
taste for pleasures of the intellect, and an innate
social genius, that led them to revolt from the gross
sensualism of the court and form, upon a new basis, a society
that has given another complexion to the last two centuries"
(Mason,
356).
~
Amelia Gere Mason, The Women of the French Salons
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The
Salon was a School of Higher Education for Women
To the Frenchwomen
of the 17th and 18th centuries of the aristocracy and bourgeoisie,
the salon served as school of higher
education. Since women of this age did not aspire to nor
have careers, the salon offered this and more. The salon
was where a woman's distinctive gifts - neither purely intellectual
nor purely physical - were prized and fostered.
Here
in the salon, salonnières
were offered exposure to a range of literary figures such
as:
- the
severe moral system of Blaise Pascal
- the
majestic eloquence of Bishop Jacques Bousset
- the
irony of Jean de la Bruyère
- the
aristocratic cynicism of François de
La Rouchefoucauld
Often times these
authors or their disciples were present to interpret the works
and share their thoughts of the age with the women of the salons.
It
was also at the salon where all of the salonnières'
womanly graces came into practice, including her:
- sweetness
- sympathy
- charm
- unselfish
loyalty
- disinterested
enthusiasm
All these womanly
traits were needed as these women worked to humanize and
socialize the great thoughts of their masculine teachers and
guides. Yet, it should be noted that these women were still
free to instinctively take what was theirs and reject
the rest.
"Without
grinding competition or unnatural concentration, some
of the most precious qualities of the feminine mind reached
their most complete development and most perfect expression
here in the salon" (Ravenel,
32).
However, this postive
view of the Parisian salonnières and their salons
was not shared by all. For example, Jean
Jacques Rousseau, the 18th century French philosopher,
claimed the salonnières were the "basis of corruption
in society" (Goodman, 5)
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