Correspondance de Mme Geoffrin et de Wenzel Anton Kaunitz

Madame Geoffrin : Letters to V. A. Kaunitz (1767-1772). Presented by Milena Lenderova. In the Kaunitz family Archives in the Moravian Regional Archives in Brno there is part of the correspondence between Venceslas Anton Kaunitz and Marie-Thérèse Geoffrin, whose salon was beginning its period of glory when Kaunitz was the Austrian ambassador in France (1751-3). Among her guests were important political figures such as Stanislav-Augustus Poniatowsky, the future king of Poland. Mme Geoffrin visited Warsaw in 1766 at Poniatowsky's invitation, travelling there and back through Germany and Austria and stopping at Vienna, where she was Kaunitz' s guest. On both visits she was received by Maria Theresa. The letters exchanged by Mme Geoffrin and Kaunitz (1767-1772) show the similarity of intellectual and cultural activities in Vienna and Paris and the closeness of European élites ; in both cities we find the same salons, entertainments and interest in the arts.