Opposite the Palace of the Luxembourg, in the heart of the old Latin Quarter, stands a quaint building, half hotel, half _café_, where many years ago Joseph II. resided while visiting his sister, Marie Antoinette. It is known now as Foyot’s; this name must awaken many happy memories in the hearts of American students, for it was long their favorite meeting-place. In the early seventies a club, formed among the literary and poetic youth of Paris, selected Foyot’s as their “home” during the winter months. Their summer vacations were spent in visiting the university towns of France, reciting verses, or acting in original plays at Nancy, Bordeaux, Lyons, or Caen. The enthusiasm these youthful performances created inspired one of their number with the idea of creating in Paris, on a permanent footing, a centre where a limited public could meet the young poets of the day and hear them recite their verses and monologues in an informal way. The success of the original “Chat Noir,” the first _cabaret_ of this kind, was largely owing to the sympathetic and attractive nature of its founder, young Salis, who drew around him, by his sunny disposition, shy personalities who, but for him, would still be “mute, inglorious Miltons.” Under his kindly and discriminating rule many a successful literary career has started. Salis’s gifted nature combined a delicate taste and critical acumen with a rare business ability. His first venture, an obscure little _café_ on the Boulevard Rochechouart, in the outlying quarter beyond the Place Pigalle, quickly became famous, its ever-increasing vogue forcing its happy proprietor to seek more commodious quarters in the rue Victor Massé, where the world-famous “Chat Noir” was installed with much pomp and many joyous ceremonies. The old word _cabaret_, corresponding closely to our English “inn,” was chosen, and the establishment decorated in imitation of a Louis XIII. _hôtellerie_. Oaken beams supported the low-studded ceilings: The plaster walls disappeared behind tapestries, armor, old _faïence_. Beer and other liquids were served in quaint porcelain or pewter mugs, and the waiters were dressed (merry anachronism) in the costume of members of the Institute (the Immortal Forty), who had so long led poetry in chains. The success of the “Black Cat” in her new quarters was immense, all Paris crowding through her modest doors. Salis had founded Montmartre!—the rugged old hill giving birth to a generation of writers and poets, and nourishing this new school at her granite breasts.