INTERNATIONAL WEEKLY MISCELLANY

Of Literature, Art, and Science.

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Vol. I. NEW YORK, JULY 22, 1850. No. 4.

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LITERARY COTERIES IN PARIS IN THE LAST CENTURY.

The revolutions of society are almost as sure if not as regular as
those of the planets. The inventions of a generation weary after
a while, but they are very likely to be revived if they have once
ministered successfully to pleasure or ambition. The famous coteries
in which learning was inter-blended with fashion in the golden age
of French intelligence, are being revived under the new Republic,
and women are again quietly playing with institutions and liberties,
perhaps as dangerously as when Mesdames de Tencin, Pompadour,
Geoffrin, Deffant, Poplinière and L'Espinasse assembled the destinies
nightly in their drawing rooms.

The tendency to such associations is displayed also in most of our
own cities. The Town and Country Club of Boston, the Wistar Parties
in Philadelphia, the Literary Club in Charleston, the recent
_converzaziones_ at the houses of President Charles King of Columbia