Folies-Bergère

Research Status: Moderate Last Updated: 2025-01-23 Diary Coverage: Up to 1881-02-24

A famous Parisian music hall opened in 1869 on rue Richer (9th arrondissement). By 1881, it was one of Paris's most popular entertainment venues, featuring variety shows, operettas, and spectacles.

Historical Context

The Folies-Bergère epitomized late 19th-century Parisian nightlife. It attracted a mixed crowd: bourgeois men, artists, prostitutes ("cocottes"), tourists. The promenade areas and bars were known for sexual commerce alongside the staged entertainment.

Social Atmosphere

The venue combined respectable theater with demi-monde culture. Women of questionable reputation mingled with male clientele in the corridors and bars. The atmosphere was smoky, loud, and charged with sexual possibility - both thrilling and scandalous for respectable women.

In Art and Literature

The Folies-Bergère became an iconic subject for Impressionist painters (notably Manet's 1882 masterpiece "A Bar at the Folies-Bergère") and naturalist writers like Zola who documented Parisian life.

Diary References

• February 24, 1881: Marie, disguised as "Pauline Orell" with a thick veil and black wig, visits the Folies-Bergère with Alexis (also in disguise), her aunt, and the princess. She describes:

- The atmosphere reminding her of the Opéra ball - "Petites cocottes" everywhere - Léa d'Asco in a nearby box with men - The noise of the orchestra and crowd (which helps Marie hear better) - Drinking champagne with a woman at the bar counter - Alexis pretending to be a painter with Marie as his model - The smell of tobacco and "mauvais lieu" (bad place/brothel) - Watching heavily made-up women and the "trottoir" (streetwalkers)

Marie's Experience

Marie adopts a Zolaesque observer stance, claiming scientific detachment while clearly excited by the transgression. The disguise allows her to experience the demi-monde safely. Significantly, this "mauvais lieu" experience somehow leads her thoughts back to Cassagnac.

Sources

• Paris entertainment history
• Manet scholarship
• Studies of 19th-century Parisian nightlife and prostitution