It is rumored that this is how the satirist Paul Scarron was known for his petits soupers, intimate dinners without ceremony, to which guests were invited to dine in the picnic-style, un repas dans le manière pique-nique.
Oliver Goldsmith’s “Retaliation” (1774) defines Scarron’s petits soupers foe English readers unfamiliar with the custom of un repas de pique-nique:
Of old, when Scarron his companions invited,
Each guest brought their dish, and the feast was united;
If our landlord supplies us with beef, and with fish,
Let each guest bring himself, and he brings the best dish.
*Scarron’s wife Françoise d’Aubigné was later Madame de Maintenon, mistress and morganatic wife of Luis XIV.
See Honoré Lacombe de Prézel. Dictionnaire des portraits historiques, anecdotes, et traits remarquables des hommes Paris, Lacombe, 1758, 1768; Oliver Goldsmith, Retaliation; a poem (London: G. Kearsley, 1774)