Manners elevated to a high art

No society has ever thought about itself more intensely, or spent more time considering how best to present itself, than the ancien régime in France for the 150 years or so which led up to the revolution. As Benedetta Craveri demonstrates in her excellent and extremely readable The Art of Conversation, this ideal of living well, with elegance, courtesy and exquisite manners, giving pleasure to others and to oneself, became not only an art but an end in itself. And where this complex web of influence, etiquette and enjoyment reached its peak was not at the court of Versailles, but in the salons of Paris.

The start of the French salon appears to date from around 1615, when Richelieu was trying to make French the lingua franca of Europe and Mme de Rambouillet opened her house in rue Saint-Thomas du Louvre as a refuge for friends from the rough, grubby, smelly chaos of the Parisian streets.