So I came across a section in a book printed in 1885 (Parisian life in the 80s) and purporting to describe society life in Paris in then-modern times. In this book, in the chapter on »Parisian dinners», a sort of regular dinner exlusively for women is described. The book calls it le dîner des rieuses.
The book describes the so-called Parisian dinner as being almost ritualistic, reserved mostly for close friends, and almost exclusively male. It describes different »companies», such as Dîner Bixio (Alexandre Dumas, Sardou, Legouvé, Labiche, Meissonier, Turgenev, and others), Les gaudes (Pasteur), le dîner celtique (Rénan) ... as I understand it, these were simply groups of men regularly meeting for dinners. Le dîner des rieuses would be a similar company but for women, started because women were excluded from the already existing companies.
The book describes this coterie of theatre-ladies as being a monthly occurrence with ceremonies such as the performing of a self-composed song by every new »presidentess», the recording of each inaugural address, and so on. It also describes how the dinners are paid for: it is forbidden, under penalty of a fine, to speak of a man or even to mention his name. Once a year, so the author says, they suspend this ban of the other gender and host a very popular ball.
Now, for the questions:
Does this picture of the Parisian society dinner seem correct? Did le dîner des rieuses exist? Is it mentioned anywhere other than in this book? If so, were any »famous» women members of it? Are there similar female-only dinner companies in other places or eras?
Sorry if this got a little lengthy. I realise that this might be a long-shot, as it's rather specific ...
I don't have much of an answer, but as you contacted me directly (thanks!) I'll tell you what I can.
This doesn't seem completely impossible. Homosocial dinners certainly did exist, but they were less "formal" than this book would make you think. Basically every restaurant in Paris in the 1850-1900s had a certain clique of people that would dine there often. The Café Riche (the Goncourt brothers), le Café Anglais (Stendhal), le Café de Flore (Huysmans, Ch. Maurras - then, in the 20th cent Sartre, Bataille, Desnos)... all the way to the dingy Flicoteaux, where Balzac occasionally ate when creditors were knocking on his door.
The idea being that these people were constantly there, rather than there being set dinners. Many of these restaurants had reservable rooms, where parties could eat in peace. You have to imagine something somewhere between a public and private space for these restaurants. They were not completely public, the way restaurants are now. People treated them as a real extension of their homes, or a sort of home-away-from home. This means that regular customers were more frequent than one-time visitors.
Women certainly were in these spaces. Indeed, women were liberated in a sense by the new public/private aspect of restaurants under the Second Empire and Third Republic.
In the early part of the century, the draconian Napoleonic Code really set women back. Specifically, men could leave their wives easily, and when they did, they left their ex destitute. Women could not divorce, but they could not have their own finances apart from their husband. The most common complaint that could reasonably allow a man to leave his wife was catching her in flagrante delicto, which basically amounted to catching your wife in any space that was not your own home. Women who loitered in public were subjected to police scrutiny thanks to strict laws regarding prostitution. It was only in 1881 that divorce was possible, a huge step towards giving women a "second life" after being left by a husband (or leaving him herself!).
The public café allowed for women to exist in public in ways they never were able to before. That being said, it was still more common to see women of a certain condition in public: actresses, most notably, or unwed women that were known to be mistresses of wealthy men.
These dîners des rieuses could be (and I'm speculating here), a sort of performance for these types of women. I would bet that not many married women frequented them... which I base on your citation of "theatre-ladies." Actresses were almost never married, unless they achieved a type of success reserved for women like Sarah Bernhardt.
You could also perhaps expect authors like Rachilde to frequent something like this, as she also frequented "male" literary dinners in Paris. Rachilde was known for her drag, and for her complex understanding of gender and sexuality. She billed herself as a "man of letters." Less controversial women writers like Marcelle Tinayre, Anna de Noailles, and myriad other "lesser" authors and journalists would also fit into this category of women who could go out in public without causing a scandal.
It doesn't seem like just anyone could go to this dinner.
I have never heard of it, though...