aracter of the noted salons, one is struck
with a certain unity that could result only from natural growth about
a nucleus of people bound together by many ties of congeniality and
friendship. Society, in its best sense, does not signify a multitude,
nor can a salon be created on commercial principles. This spirit of
commercialism, so fatal to modern social life, was here conspicuously
absent. It was not at all a question of debit and credit, of formal
invitations to be given and returned. Personal values were regarded.
The distinctions of wealth were ignored and talent, combined with the
requisite tact, was, to a certain point, the equivalent of rank. If
rivalries existed, they were based upon the quality of the guests rather
than upon material display. But the modes of entertainment were as
varied as the tastes and abilities of the women who presided. Many of
the well-known salons were open daily. Sometimes there were suppers,
which came very much into vogue after the petits soupers of the regent.
The Duchesse de Choiseul, during the ministry of her husband, gave a
supper every evening excepting on Friday and Sunday. At a quarter before
ten the steward glanced through the crowded rooms, and prepared the
table for all who were present. The Monday suppers at the Temple were
thronged. On other days a more intimate circle gathered round the
tables, and the ladies served tea after the English fashion. A few women
of rank and fortune imitated these princely hospitalities, but it was
the smaller coteries which presented the most charming and distinctive
side of French society. It was not the luxurious salon of the Duchesse
du Maine, with its whirl of festivities and passion for esprit, nor
that of the Temple, with its brilliant and courtly, but more or less
intellectual, atmosphere; nor that of the clever and critical Marechale
de Luxembourg, so elegant, so witty, so noted in its day--which left the
most permanent traces and the widest fame. It was those presided over
by women of lesser rank and more catholic sympathies, of whom Voltaire
aptly said that "the decline of their beauty revealed the dawn of their
intellect;" women who had the talent, tact, and address to gather about
them a circle of distinguished men who have crowned them with a luminous
ray from their own immortality. The names of Mme. de Lambert, Mme. de
Tencin, Mme. Geoffrin, Mme. du Deffand, Mme. Necker, Mme. de Stael, and
others of lesser note, call up vision