Travel

Dositej Obradović (1739/41-1811), Serbia’s foremost enlightener, was able to carry out reforms thanks to his circle of friends and the ties he established among Serbs were a direct consequence of his stay in London.

Portraitiste officielle de Marie-Antoinette, Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun émigre en octobre 1789, voyageant d’une cour à l’autre pendant près de vingt ans, de Rome à Saint-Pétersbourg, avant de séjourner en Angleterre. Artiste de la mondanité et de la mise en scène de soi et des autres, elle publie de 1835 à 1837 des Souvenirs où s’entrelacent chroniques de la vie des élites européennes et sociabilité artistique.

Flora Tristan (1803-1844), femme de lettres, féministe, militante ouvrière et philanthrope française, se rendit en Angleterre quatre fois au cours de sa vie. Les modalités de ses déplacements furent conditionnées par sa situation sociale. Voyageuse intrépide, elle se rendit à Londres pour rencontrer ses nombreux habitants et pour observer les pratiques de sociabilité dans les sphères politiques et sociales.

Casanova’s sociability was the result of his personality, and his life, most of which – at least the part recounted – was spent as a wanderer throughout Europe, an adventurer seeking fortune. Casanova made his living by such varied means as organizing a royal lottery, gambling, and at times acting as a confidence man.

‘In every country it is social pleasure that sheds the most delicious flowers which grow on the path of life’ (H.M. Williams, Letters, 1790, 140 ). This British author, who settled in Paris in 1792, contributed greatly to the circulation of ideas between France and England through her intellectual and political circles as well as through her publications. She was a tireless chronicler of social practices and historical events from the Revolution to the Restoration.

Often considered a contradictory character herself, Hester Thrale Piozzi, now best remembered as a Bluestocking hostess and biographer of Samuel Johnson, embodies some of the contradictions of eighteenth-century sociable lives.