From this moment, the poets, feeling themselves appreciated and their
rights acknowledged and defended, flocked to the “Sacred Mountain,” as
Montmartre began to be called; other establishments of the same character
sprang up in the neighborhood. Most important among these were the “4
z’Arts,” Boulevard de Clichy, the “Tambourin,” and La Butte.
Trombert, who, together with Fragerolle, Goudezki, and Marcel Lefèvre,
had just ended an artistic voyage in the south of France, opened the “4
z’Arts,” to which the novelty-loving public quickly found its way,
crowding to applaud Coquelin _cadet_, Fragson, and other budding
celebrities. It was here that the poets first had the idea of producing
a piece in which rival _cabarets_ were reviewed and laughingly
criticised. The success was beyond all precedent, in spite of the
difficulty of giving a play without a stage, without scenery or
accessories of any kind, the interest centring in the talent with which
the lines were declaimed by their authors, who next had the pleasant
thought of passing in review the different classes of popular songs,
Clovis Hugues, at the same time poet and statesman, discoursing on each
subject, and introducing the singer; Brittany local songs, Provençal
ballads, ant the half Spanish, half French _chansons_ of the Pyrenees
were sung or recited by local poets with the charm and abandon of their
distinctive races.
The great critics did not disdain to attend these informal gatherings,
nor to write columns of serious criticism on the subject in their papers.
At the hour when all Paris takes its _apéritif_ the “4 z’Arts” became the
meeting-place of the painters, poets, and writers of the day. Montmartre
gradually replaced the old Latin Quarter; it is there to-day that one
must seek for the gayety and humor, the pathos and the makeshifts of
Bohemia.
The “4 z’Arts,” next to the “Chat Noir,” has had the greatest influence
on the taste of our time,—the pleiad of poets that grouped themselves
around it in the beginning, dispersing later to form other centres,
which, in their turn, were to influence the minds and moods of thousands.
Another charming form of entertainment inaugurated by this group of men
is that of “shadow pictures,” conceived originally by Caran d’Ache, and
carried by him to a marvellous perfection. A medium-sized frame filled
with ground glass is suspended at one end of a room and surrounded by
sombre draperies. The room is darkened; against the luminous background
of the glass appear small black groups (shadows cast by figures cut out
of cardboard). These figures move, advancing and retreating, grouping or
separating themselves to the cadence of the poet’s verses, for which they
form the most original and striking illustrations. Entire poems are
given accompanied by these shadow pictures.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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