Salons, Patronage Networks, and the Self-Representation of Three Seventeenth-Century French Women of Science

Abstract

Seventeenth-century French salons have emerged in recent historiography as leading centers where conversation was the privileged medium for the circulation and production of knowledge. In this perspective, salons (or, more properly, ruelles, compagnie, or commerce as they were then called) functioned not simply as elite social gatherings with little influence on the history of ideas but as havens of collaborative discussion on a wide range of topics, including philosophical and scientific disciplines. As Faith Beasley explains, salon conversation was “a tool in the creation of knowledge and not simply a product of a narrowly defined concept of sociability.” Salons offered women the opportunity to inform themselves of new scientific ideas, contribute to natural knowledge, and patronize female scientists. The self-representation of three women scientists—mathematician Marie Crous (fl. 1635), Paracelsian chemist Marie Meurdrac (fl. 1665), and astronomer Jeanne Dumée (fl. 1685)—and their connections to the salons and to individual salonnières’