A Salon-in-Exile

This open access book explores the Ancien rgime salons which were the foremost cultural centres in early modern France. Presided over by women, these salons carved out spaces for poetry recitals, performances, and scientific lectures amid polite conversation, enabling mixed-gender intellectual exchange. But what happened when salon members were banished from France and exported the salon to a new national audience? How did visitors of different creeds and nationalities share this space? In other words, what happened when the salon model itself went into exile? A Salon-in-Exile explores the translation of the salon from France to England in the late-17th century via the first book-length study of the Mazarin salon, the most influential French exile community in London. Annalisa Nicholson examines the establishment of the Mazarin salon in 1676 and how this marked the founding of the first major salon in England. Nicholson looks at how, hosted by Hortense Mancini and Charles de Saint-vremond, it quickly became one of the most celebrated salons in Europe. Bringing together the capitals community of French and European exiles with Restoration Londons elite, the salon fostered engagement with European thought, French literature, and epicurean philosophy to wield an authoritative influence on continental culture in England. With a wide-ranging corpus spanning letters, memoirs, plays, operas, and essays by the salon members, this book provides a new account of co-existence and collaboration in Restoration society. By investigating what happens when the model of the salon moves beyond France's borders, Nicholson reveals its transformation into a pan-European space which accommodated its multilingual and multi-confessional membership. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by UKRI.