The International Weekly Miscellany - Volume I, No. 4

International Weekly Miscellany
Of
by Various

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Title: International Weekly Miscellany Of Literature, Art, and Science
Vol. I., July 22, 1850. No. 4.
Author: Various
Release Date: July 29, 2004 [EBook #13053]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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INTERNATIONAL WEEKLY MISCELLANY
Of Literature, Art, and Science.
* * * * *
Vol. I. NEW YORK, JULY 22, 1850. No. 4.
* * * * *

LITERARY COTERIES IN PARIS IN THE LAST CENTURY.
The revolutions of society are almost as sure if not as regular as those
of the planets. The inventions of a generation weary after a while, but
they are very likely to be revived if they have once ministered
successfully to pleasure or ambition. The famous coteries in which
learning was inter-blended with fashion in the golden age of French
intelligence, are being revived under the new Republic, and women are
again quietly playing with institutions and liberties, perhaps as
dangerously as when Mesdames de Tencin, Pompadour, Geoffrin,
Deffant, Poplinière and L'Espinasse assembled the destinies nightly in
their drawing rooms.
The tendency to such associations is displayed also in most of our own
cities. The Town and Country Club of Boston, the Wistar Parties in
Philadelphia, the Literary Club in Charleston, the recent converzaziones
at the houses of President Charles King of Columbia College, and
others, and the well-known Saturday Evenings at Miss Lynch's, where
literature and art and general speculation have for some seasons had a
common center, all illustrate the disposition of an active and cultivated
society, not engrossed by special or spasmodic excitements, to cluster
by rules of feeling and capacity: and clusters of passion and mind are
rarely for a long period inert. When they become common they are apt
to assume the direction of private custom and public opinion and
affairs.
In view of these things, we are sure that the readers of the International

will be interested in the following translation of Professor Schlosser's
brilliant survey of those bureaux d'esprit which so much distinguished
society and influenced its history in Europe, from the beginning to the
middle of the last century. Schlosser is a Privy Councillor and
Professor of History in the University of Heidelberg. He is chiefly
known in continental Europe by his great work, the History of the
Eighteenth Century, and of the Nineteenth till the overthrow of the
French Empire, a work which derives its value not merely from the
profound and minute acquaintance of the author with the subject, from
the new views which are presented and the hitherto unexamined
sources from which much has been derived, but from his well-known
independence of character--from the general conclusions which he
draws from the comparative views of the resources, conduct, manners,
institutions and literature of the great European nations, during a period
unparalleled in the history of the world for the development of the
physical and mental powers of mankind, for the greatness of the events
which occurred, for the progress of knowledge, for the cultivation of
the arts and sciences, for all that contributes to the greatness and
prosperity of nations.
* * * * *
If we venture to bring the Parisian evening, dinner and supper parties
into connection with the general history of Europe, and the ladies also
at whose houses these parties took place, we can neither be blamed for
scrupulous severity, nor for paradoxical frivolity. It belongs to the
character of the eighteenth century, that the historian who wishes to
bring the true springs of conduct and sources of action to light, must
condescend even so far. It must also be borne in mind, when the clever
women and societies of Paris are spoken of, that the demands of the age
and progressive improvement and culture were altogether unattended to
at the court of Louis XV., as well before as after the death of Cardinal
Fleury, and that all which was neglected at Versailles was cultivated in
Paris. The court and the city had been hitherto united in their wants and
in their judgment; the court ruled education, fashion and the general
tone, as it ruled the state; now, however, they completely separated.
Afterward the voice of the city was raised in opposition, and the voice

of this opposition became the organ of the age and of the country; but it
was felt