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De Kéralio Robert Salon

Members

Notes

Louise-Félicité de Keralio Robert hosted one of the first explicitly republican salon gatherings. This ‘republican salon’ is something of a contradiction, belying the transitory character of its position within an aristocratic establishment and within republican organisations: not part of the aristocratic salon heritage, it was neither one of the new political organisations or clubs. Not least, the salon character of the meetings is indicated by its ambivalent feminism: unlike the Jacobins, but like the Cordeliers – which de Kéralio frequented with her husband, Robert – the salon hosted women as well as men. The salon met firstly at her family home, 17 rue de Gramont, then in the Marais, and finally at 10 rue de Condé. Its chief period of activity was 1791. Indeed, according to the later historian Alphone Aulard, one could say of the salon that “the republican party was born in 1791 on the sofa of a woman of letters.” Although names are difficult to identify, the salon was associated with the montagne deputies and with the Corderliers club, and can be considered a wing of de Kéralio's publishing and journal ventures. De Kéralio withdrew from political activity after 1791, and, like most of the other salonnières, ceased her meetings before the Jacobin crackdown around 1794, though in the case of the Roberts, this was due to an explicit attack in 1793 accusing the couple of sustaining relations with Orléanists.

See:

Karen Green, A History of Women’s Political Thought in Europe, 1700-1800 (Cambridge: CUP, 2014)

Annie Geffroy, ‘Louise de Kéralio-Robert, pionnière du républicanisme sexiste’, Annales historiques de la Révolution française, 344 (2006) pp. 107-124

Olivier Blanc, 'Cercles politiques et « salons » du début de la Révolution (1789-1793)', Revolutions française, 344 (2006) p. 63-92