Question

The following passage is adapted from an essay about the social dynamics of eighteenth-century French salons.

Paragraph 1 (lines 1-15)
Historians have long celebrated the French salons of the eighteenth century as the crucibles of the Enlightenment, spaces where intellectual debate supposedly transcended social hierarchies. In these assemblies, hosted primarily by wealthy, aristocratic women, philosophers like Voltaire and Diderot gathered to debate radical ideas about liberty, reason, and governance. Because salon guests were ostensibly judged on their wit and intellect rather than their noble lineage, many scholars argue that the salon served as a precursor to the modern public sphere. In this view, the salon was a democratic haven that dismantled feudal social barriers, facilitating the free exchange of subversive ideas that would ultimately feed the flames of the French Revolution.

Paragraph 2 (lines 16-32)
However, a closer examination of salon correspondence suggests that this idealized portrayal overlooks the rigid social etiquette that governed these gatherings. Far from being democratic forums, salons were highly structured arenas where elite hosts policed the boundaries of polite conversation. To gain entry, participants had to master the intricate codes of bienséance���a complex system of decorum, tone, and conversational restraint. While intellectuals of modest origins were invited, they were expected to conform to aristocratic linguistic norms, effectively silencing those who could not perform this stylized civility. Consequently, rather than democratizing knowledge, the salon functioned primarily to domesticate radical philosophy, rendering it palatable to the very ruling classes whose authority it ostensibly challenged.

Which of the following statements best describes the main idea of the second paragraph (lines 16-32)?