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BACK
The popularity of Jean Antoine Nollet’s lectures among female amateurs may seem unusual. Yet 18th-century Paris was the center for a different type of gathering from the English and Dutch scientific societies, where membership was predominantly male. The French salon was an informal group of female and male amateurs who brought their inquisitive minds to sessions of demonstrations. In Nollet’s frontispiece (right), the regal woman seated on the central chair is a perfect example of Nollet’s wide popularity among the noble classes. Women, however, were not suited for all experiments. In the discussion of the Leiden experiment, Nollet noted the danger involved in the demonstration, which at one instance killed a bird. He dissuaded pregnant women from taking part. In the image of the experiment (left), the female amateur turns the globe, leaving the shock of the “electric kiss,” as it was called during the time, to her partner.
"...all the women had their bel esprit, next their geometer, and finally their Abbé Nollet."
-Cardinal François-Joachim de Pierre de Bernis, in a letter to Voltaire
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