Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 2.djvu/353

 _salons_ she names are, as it were, types of the different stages civilization has attained to in the city which chooses to style itself "the brain of Europe."

The description, given in the little book before us, of what in Paris constitutes a genuine _salon_, is a tolerably correct one. "A _salon_," says Mme. Ancelot, "is not in the least like one of those places in a populous town, where people gather together a crowd of individuals unknown to each other, who never enter into communication, and who are where they are, momentarily, either because they expect to dance, or to hear music, or to show off the magnificence of their dress. This is not what can ever be called a _salon_. A _salon_ is an intimate and periodical meeting of persons who for several years have been in the habit of frequenting the same house, who enjoy each other's society, and who have some reason, as they imagine, to be happy when they are brought in contact. The persons who receive, form a link between the various persons they invite, and this link binds the _habitués_ more closely to one another, if, as is commonly the case, it is a woman of superior mind who forms the point of union. A _salon_, to be homogeneous, and to endure, requires that its _habitués_ should have similar opinions and tastes, and, above all, enough of the urbanity of bygone days to enable its frequenters to feel _at home_ with every one in it, without the necessity of a formal introduction. Formerly, this practice of speaking to persons you had not been presented to was a proof of good-breeding; for it was well known that in no house of any distinction would there be found a guest who was not worthy to be the associate of whoever was noblest and best. These habits of social intercourse gave a value to the intellectual and moral qualities of the individual, quite independent of his fortune or his rank; and in these little republics the real sovereign was _merit_."

Madame Ancelot is right here, and there were in Paris several of these _salons_, which served as the models for those of all the rest of Europe. Under the Restoration, two illustrious ladies tried to recall to the generation that had sprung from the Empire or from emigration what the famous _salons_ of old had once been, and the Duchesse de Duras and the Marquise de Montcalm (sister to the then minister, the Duc de Richelieu) drew around them all that was in any way distinguished in France. But the many causes we have noted above made the enterprise a difficult one, and the various divergences of society, politically speaking, rendered the task of the mistress of a house one of surpassing arduousness. Mme. de Staël, who, by her very superiority perhaps,--certainly by her vehemence,--was prevented from ever being a perfect example of what was necessary in this respect, acquired the nickname of _Présidente de Salons_; and it would appear, that, with her resolute air, her loud voice, and her violent opinions, she really did seem like a kind of speaker of some House of Commons disguised as a woman. That the management of a _salon_ was no easy affair the following anecdote will prove. The Duchesse de Duras one day asked M. de Talleyrand what he thought of the evening _réunions_ at her house, and after a few words of praise, he added: "But you are too vivacious as yet, too young. Ten years hence you will know better how to manage it all." Mme. de Duras was then somewhere about fifty-four or five! We perceive, therefore, that, according to M. de Talleyrand, the proper manner of receiving a certain circle of _habitués_ was likely to be the study of a whole life.

We select from Mme. Ancelot's book sketches of the following _maitresses de maison_, because they seem to us the types of the periods of transformation to which they correspond in the order of date:--Mme. Lebrun, Mme. Gérard, Mme. d'Abrantès, Mme. Récamier, Mme. Nodier. Mme. Lebrun corresponds to the period when Pre-Revolutionary traditions were still in force, and when the remembrance yet subsisted of