De la société de salon à la société de cour: l'ambivalence du processus de civilisation

Abstract

In France, one can date the establishment of the process of civilization between 1635 and 1675, as the current of civility, which had begun to develop in scattered salons, is taken over by the monarchy. A continuity between salons and court can be seen in refined morals, language (le bel usage), and the gallant aesthetics, the matrix of literary creation in the seventeenth century. However, as values leave the salons under Richelieu – home of counter-power – for Louis XIV’s court – seat of the dominant power – they undergo a rigidification. The society of leisure yields to a ritualization of all activities, and the model of the “galant homme”, that was distinguished by its boldness, declines before that of the “honnête homme”, who cultivates an art of measure to fit all situations. The progressive specialization of the salons changes them into academies, preparing the creation of a “classical” taste.