ABSTRACT
Three periods may be discerned in the social life of the eighteenth century. Three phases of its history mark its spirit with three distinct manners. The beginning of the reign of Louis XV, the end of his reign, and the reign of Louis XVI, bring to the world they transform and renew the successive changes of three epochs. And it is the features of these three periods which we must now study. But where are they to be seen? In books? No. What book will give us the graphic touch, the elusive color, the indefinable impression of a living world? What Mémoire will offer its pulse, its expression, its flesh-and-blood features? No. By-and-bye we shall turn to them for whatever portraits and reminiscences, whatever dim echoes and fugitive images may now, after these many years, be gleaned from a meeting of men and women. But really to know the society of the eighteenth century, to feel it with the life of our eyes, let us open a folio of engravings and watch it live, on three stages, in a salon of 1730, a salon of 1760, and a salon of 1780.
