Notes From The Garret

Henri Matisse, Marguerite au Chat Noir, Centre Pompidou Paris 1910 wiki: Thierry Caro At Le Chat Noir’s closing hour, the well-fed poets – men and women both – bought one last round of cognac, one for the other before they retired to their cozily heated homes. No day job awaited on the morn to wear soul and muse to shreds. It was a far cry from the world just a decade earlier in 1871 before the Paris Commune’s crimson flag flew over the City of Light. That was the moment the populace carried the day over the Versaillais forces of order, turning from prey to the powerful few to citizens of a new dawn. The insurrection’s victory was still the subject of epics and villanelles at the Chat Noir. Ten years later, the authors of the poetry – sometimes the same as the authors of the insurrection– still toasted the triumph each night until the cabaret shut down. As the latch clicked behind the proprietor, well beneath that same Boulevard Rochechouart, downstairs another cabaret continued unint...