Back when I used Twitter, I enjoyed the tweets by Hannah Greig, so I was happy to come across The Beau Monde, her book about the British elites in the eighteenth century. It clearly started as a PHD thesis and that skews the tone away from a more popular, storytelling style of writing but it is clear and very readable.
The book exists to make a particular argument, the worlds of court and high society were not a shiny, vacuous bunch of spendthrifts, chortling ad scandalmongering while the real influence was being wielded by the emerging middle classes. They actual did stuff, had power and adapted to the new social world that was being built throughout the century.
A key concept was that of fashion. While it was important to follow fashion, the Beau Monde (or the Bon Ton) also created and regulated it. Unlike today, a fashionable item was not reliant on a brand, it wasn’t necessarily who made a thing that made it fashionable but who else had one. If new candlesticks were being made, they were being made to be like those in another fashionable house. In this way they weren’t merely consumers, but creators of the fashions - and that those fashions spoke of intricate networks of privilege, political persuasion and intimacy.
One of the most fascinating chapters was about diamonds. These clear, glittering stones became the precious stone to wear and a person (male or female) could make their mark and stake their place in the fashionable world by the amount of diamonds and the craftsmanship of setting them. Yet this doesn’t mean that they simply had lots of diamonds, they pooled them. So if a family member had an important date, like a first presentation in court, the family would recall all the diamonds through their network, diamonds would be borrowed from friends, and all these diamonds would be reworked for that occasion before being called for and reworked for a different person and a different occasion. The chapter showed how the loaning, giving and reworking of diamonds strengthened family and even political relations.In fact, a new rich family simply buying new diamonds didn’t have the same advantage, as they missed out on the acts of social cohesion that the loaning of diamonds created. The chapter also showed how precarious being a jeweller was, as the work was mostly resetting, not selling new rocks.
A similar game was played with opera boxes. Keeping a box was expensive, so families would pool resources, not particularly out of a love of opera but because it was an arena for keeping connections and making statements. Two families sharing an opera box was often the signal of a new marriage, or the cementing of a political alliance.
There’s another great chapter about the pleasure gardens of Vauxhall and Ranelagh. Much has been said of how these were great social mixing places (like the Rotunda and the theatre) that the cheap-ish entry ticket meant servants could afford to dress up and go for a special treat. However, Greig argues that the Beau Monde did not use this places to mix, but to meet each other and perform their status to others. There were deep invisible lines that meant that those in the circle knew where to be and what to do, and those without could watch. They were all together but all distinct.
What was the purpose of all this, other than maintaining the caste? Politics. Whitehall, which had been Europe’s biggest palace had largely burnt down but the commons still met in what was left. The sessions of parliament set ‘the season’ and various social events were delayed if the house sat long. More than this, there wasn’t a big enough court complex to have a Versailles-like secluded world, so the business of politics fanned out across London and happened at the opera, theatre, pleasure garden and ball. Systems of patronage still existed, political parties were formed on dance floors and declared in fashion choices. Every act of the Beau Monde was a part of an interconnected web of very carefully balanced relationships that maintained and held commercial, political and cultural power.
Was I convinced by these arguments? Sort of. Certainly, it gave me a look at the world of the rich that presented them as more than tittering fops. It’s also very well argued and features many fascinating anecdotes, often told in their own words from letters and diaries. I’m always going to be wedded to my Grub St, my booksellers, my Johnson and Lunar Society as the true influencers on the eighteenth century and beyond, but I’m less dismissive of the Chesterfield and Walpoles. It was a good book that taught me and showed me a different view. I won’t be convinced that today’s aristocracy are a waste of time that needs abolishing though.
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