regulators. They could select their guests and decide the subjects of their meetings. These subjects could be social, literary, or political topics of the time. They also served as mediators by directing the discussion. The salon was an informal education for women, where they were able to exchange ideas, receive and give criticism, read their own works and hear the works and ideas of other intellectuals. Many ambitious women used the salon to pursue a form of higher education. Two of the most famous 17th-century literary salons in Paris were the Hôtel de Rambouillet, established in 1607 near the Palais du Louvre by the marquise de Rambouillet, where gathered the original précieuses, and, in 1652 in Le Marais, the rival salon of Madeleine de Scudéry, a long time habituée of the Hôtel de Rambouillet. Les bas-bleus, borrowed from England's "blue-stockings," soon found itself in use upon the attending ladies, a nickname continuing to mean "intellectual woman" for the next three hundred years. Paris salons of the 18th century hosted by women include the following: Adèle and Aurore de Bellegarde Madame Geoffrin Madame de Tencin Jeanne Quinault, hostess of the Bout-du-Banc Madame Dupin Constance Pipelet, later Constance de Salm following her divorce Françoise de Graffigny, author of Lettres d'une Péruvienne Julie de Lespinasse: her chief draw was d'Alembert, but "though the name of M. d'Alembert may have drawn them thither, it was she alone who kept them there." the marquise du Deffand, the friend of Horace Walpole the marquise de Lambert the duchesse du Maine Madame d'Épinay Madame Necker, the wife of the financier Jacques Necker Madame de Staël, daughter of the Neckers, took over from her mother and in exile hosted the international Coppet group Madame Helvétius, the wife of Helvétius Sophie de Condorcet, wife of the mathematician and philosopher Condorcet, visited by foreign notables and French thinkers alike Juliette Récamier, socialite and friend of Germaine de Staël Madame Roland, the political salon that was the resort of the Girondists at the first stages of the Revolution Madame Swetchine, wife of General Swetchine Julie Talma, a friend of Benjamin Constant Some 19th-century salons were more inclusive, verging on the raffish, and centered around painters and "literary lions" such as Madame Récamier. After the shock of the 1870 Franco-Prussian War, French aristocrats withdrew from the public eye. However, Princess Mathilde still held a salon in her mansion, rue de Courcelles, later