The Rambouillet Salon
This chapter focuses on the famous Rambouillet salon, the most important gathering spot for aristocrats—both men and women—and writers in the early decades of the seventeenth century. Presided over by the Marquise de Rambouillet and, especially, her daughter Julie, this institution was deliberately conceived as a refuge from the royal court, which was considered by many as lacking in refinement and politesse. It fostered intense interactions between a privileged and cultivated Parisian elite and up-and-coming writers. Indeed, for the latter, the salon was their primary “public.” The chapter looks particularly at several aspects of these interactions, from theatrical productions and literary pastimes to several textual representations. As a premier locus of “retreat,” the salon affords a particularly revealing example of how this ethos informed the cultural dynamics of the day.