THE NORTH BRITISH REVIEW. FEBRUARY AND MAY, 1860. VOLUME XXXII. AMERICAN EDITION, VOL. XXVII. NEW YORK: PUBLISHED BY LEONARD SCOTT & CO., 79 FULTON STREET, CORNER OF GOLD STREET. 1860. THR NORTH BRITISH REVIEW. No. LXIII. FOR FEBRUARY, 1860. ART. I.-Souvenirs et Correspondance tirés not a fact to be disputed; and therefore the des papiers de Madame Récamier. 2 Vols. institution-" salon," is of importance. But Paris Michel Levy. from its de facto importance to its actual worth, and to the admission of its beneficial Ir has been a constant subject of regret with influence, there is some distance. We do men of the world in our own country, that not think it easy to exaggerate the mere imthe social habits of France in former times portance of salon life, as it once was, in (namely, the establishment of social inter- France. The questions that depend imcourse upon intellectual bases) should never mediately upon it are no less than these : have been introduced into England. From the superiority of domestic over social inHorace Walpole to Lord Holland, you fluences, and vice versa; the more or less meet every where with the strong feeling of active power of women in public affairs; French superiority, as far as the organiza- the respect for intelligence, or the subtion of society is concerned. It is quite serviency to wealth; the substitution of clear that we envy the French their salons, and that directly an Englishman ceases to be an irreclaimable "sporting character," or to be riveted to the mere drudgery of political life, he is ready at once to exclaim, "Why don't we talk like the French? why are we so utterly ignorant of what they term la causerie?" coterieism for public opinion, and several others we could name. Because all these questions bear upon the morals of a nation, and have mainly contributed to fashion the public life of France to what we now see, we maintain that le salon, as the term was understood some years back by our neighbours, is a thing of very great importance, and ought to be studied by all who wish to obtain an accurate knowledge of French civilization as it has been and is. Whether our inability ever to found the salon-sovereignty in our own society be, or be not, to be regretted,-that, we take to belong to a different order of topics, and to be subject to a different system of discussion. Now, at the same time with this, may be observed in France the disposition to cast a regretful, retrograde glance upon society as it once existed in that country, and to say with a sigh, "The real genuine salon exists no longer-it is extinct." From the sadness with which Frenchmen speak of the decline and fall of salon life, and from the regret expressed by Englishmen whom we have been thought to regard as of superior The first salon established in France (for intelligence, that no such thing could be in social life especially Paris is France) was established in our own country, we might that of Madame de Rambouillet in 1620; reasonably infer that the Paris salon was a the last one was that of Madame Récamier. social institution of importance and undeni- What precedes the former, and what follows able worth. the latter, are equally without action, and undeserving of note. The great Revolution of '89-'93 has passed between the two epochs, and has torn up out of the political soil all the roots wherefrom other nations draw their political existence. A crown has That the "salon," such as it was constituted in France from Madame de Rambouillet down to Madame Récamier, was one of the chief springs whereby the political and social machine was set working, is |