Le Chat Noir

The cabaret was founded at Boulevard de Rochechouart 84 by Rodolphe Salis at the foot of Montmartre in 1881. The black cat was an artistic reference to Paris, where stray and meowing cats roamed especially at night. Between 1868 and 1869 Champfleury dedicated an entire book to domestic cats Les Chats: histoire, mœurs, anecdotes. The book was illustrated with engraved drawings by Eugène Delacroix, Édouard Manet, Prosper Mérimée, and Hokusai, becoming a popular success.

The success of the cabaret was assured with the wholesale arrival of a group of radical young writers and artists called 'The Hydropathes' ("those who are afraid of water – so they drink only wine"), a club led by the journalist Émile Goudeau. The group claimed to be averse to water, preferring wine and beer. Their name doubled as a nod to the "rabid" devotion with which they advocated their sociopolitical and aesthetic agendas. Goudeau's club met in his house on the Rive Gauche ('Left Bank'), but had become so popular that it outgrew its meeting place. Salis met Goudeau, whom he convinced to relocate the club meeting place across the river on Rue de Laval, now Rue Victor-Massé.

Ten years later, in 1907, Jehan Chargot opened an eponymous café in an effort to resurrect, modernise, and continue the work of his illustrious predecessor. This new Chat Noir, located at Boulevard de Clichy 68, remained popular into the 1920s.

Today a neon sign which incorporates Steinlen's iconic Chat Noir image is on display at Boulevard de Clichy 68, now the site of a hotel by the same name.

Other cabarets successfully copied and adapted the model established by Le Chat Noir. In December 1899, Henri Fursy opened his Boîte à Fursy cabaret in the former Chat Noir hotel on Rue Victor-Massé. He claimed to have inherited the mantle of Salis, and said his cabaret "has thanks to Fursy become once again the goal of all who 'climb Montmartre' to hear their favourite chansonniers ('singers')."