Club de l'Entresol

[4] It ostensibly echoed the English model of clubs for free discussion of political and economic questions, at a time of widespread Anglophilia in Paris under the Régence.

[1] A more recent experience had been the académie politique [fr] established at the Louvre by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Marquess of Torcy, which operated from 1712 to 1715 and again from 1717 to 1720 and from which the club's members drew lessons about how best to organize their activities.

Members specialized in specific policy areas: e.g. Alary on Germany, d'Argenson on public law and institutions, Balleroy and Champeaux on peace treaties, Verteillac on mixed-government constitutions, d'Autry on Italy, Plélo on government institutions, Pallu on French financial history, Caraman on commerce, d'Oby on French estates-general and parliaments, Saint-Contest on contemporary history, Bragelongne on sovereign houses, La Fautrière on finance and trade, and Saint-Pierre on multiple topics.

[5]: 92-96  The older members: Camilly, Coigny, Lassay, Matignon, Noirmoutiers, Pérelle, Pomponne, and Saint-Contest the elder until his death, acted as a sounding and advisory board for their fellows' work.

[5]: 110 Both the policy focus and structured research program made the club de l'entresol a precursor of more recent think tanks, even though its output was not in the public domain given the lack of freedom of expression in France at the time.

[6] The mention in some online sources[3][8] of Claude Adrien Helvétius as a member is improbable, given his young age at the time of the club's activity and the fact that he spent much of his youth in Caen.