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Women and salons that they hosted appeared in Europe (predominantly in France) during the 16th century, and they grew and flourished during the following two centuries. The financial and other means of support from the women who frequently hosted the salons marked a major contribution to important projects in the history of European thought. These female salon hosts presided at the creation of the Précieuses literary movement and the Encyclopédie during the French Enlightenment era of the 18th century. In this regard, the fertile intellectual environment that developed in the informal ranks of the salons supports a favourable comparison with the Académie française, where women were not admitted until three and a half centuries after its establishment by Cardinal Richelieu in 1635.