Le Petite Cénacle: The First Generation of Bohemians

While the idea of Bohemianism may seem eternal, the founding of Bohemianism in Paris can be traced to 1830 when a small group of young writers and artists formed a circle they called le Petit Cénacle. They believed that life should be lived for art—and art never should be employed toward bourgeois conventions and comforts.

The Bohemians of le Petite Cénacle became infamous for their drunken revelry, noisy impropriety, and outrageous dress. Their motto: “Èpater la Bourgeoisie” or shock, scandalize, flabbergast the stuffy middle class. 

This podcast was created by Roger Mummert for www.theparisproject.net.  

Transcript

Bohemianism Part 2.        www.theparisproject.net

Le Petit Cénacle: The First Generation of Bohemia 

While the idea of Bohemianism may seem eternal, the founding of Bohemianism in Paris can be traced to 1830 when a small group of young writers and artists formed a circle they called le Petit Cénacle. The name was inspired by the earlier Cénacle of Victor Hugo. (Cénacle means “upper room,” in reference to the place where the group met.) Hugo’s circle included Alexander Dumas, Charles Nodier and other established writers who embraced romanticism and dared to reject classicism.

The writers and artists of le Petite Cénacle were in their early 20’s, and they made up the next generation who took romanticism to a higher level. They believed that life should be lived for art—and art never should be employed toward bourgeois conventions and comforts. 

Like many art movements, bohemianism in its original phase lasted a short while: five, 10, 20 years in various stages. But its essence inspired a host of spinoffs: Parnasianism, dandyism, les poèts maudit, the decadent poets, symbolists, neo-bohemians and anti-bohemians. A century later, bohemianism inspired dadaism, surrealism, the Lost Generation, le Nouvelle Vague, as well as beatniks and hippies, punk rock and grunge.

Bohemianism also inspired works about Bohemianism. The first was Henri Murger’s Scenes de la Vie de Boheme. This series of stories, published in newspaper installments beginning in 1845, followed a group of friends living a Bohemian life in Paris. It achieved fabulous success as a play in 1849, then as a book that was widely reprinted and translated. The story was spun into several operas called La Boheme, first by Puccini, then by Leoncavallo. A century later, the opera inspired the musical Rent. At least a dozen movies are based on the story or inspired by it, notable Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge! And“Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen streams on as a rock anthem after nearly half a century. It even inspired “Bohemian Polka,” a parody tribute by Weird Al Yankovic.

Bohemianism may be more style than substance, but what a style! It’s eternal; it never goes away. Haute BoHo is now a fashion classic. And there’s BoBo or Bourgeois Bohemian. This oxymoron describes a political progressive who bicycles from their luxury apartment to a protest against new luxury housing that threatens a neighborhood’s Bohemian heritage. That’s full circle irony there.

As for living a bohemian experience, I’ve been there. 

When I arrived in Paris as a student in the Seventies, I left my jeans stateside and wore a suit and a Borsalino hat tilted jauntily, in imitation of a photo of Henry Miller in Paris in the Thirties. I checked in to a student hotel in the Quartier Latin then hit the boulevards to purchase a black cape to complete my image as a fully Frenchified Bohemian. I inquired in a few men’s clothing shops. I was met with the dismissive Parisian “puff!” One shop owner gave me a blistering response: He ran a fashionable Parisian shop, he said, not some costumery for Bohemian wannabes (like me). Well, no cape. But, I bought a long scarf and looped it around my neck as my boho flag. 

A few years later, I lived in New York’s East Village, where there was no shortage of Bohemians. Second Avenue was a parade of old hippies, very old beatniks and young punk rockers. A Bohemian platter: pieroggis at Veselka. A Bohemian date: a double-header of Godard and Truffault at the Bleecker Street Cinema. A Bohemian point of pride: never going above 14th Street. And everyone had spent time in Paris—or they planned to. 

I shared a large, cheap flat with two young artists from Geneva—and a lot of French was spoken. Their Euro-friends dropped by with Beaujolais and paté for rooftop picnics. Our apartment had few comforts, being furnished with various pickings: street trophies! When a flatmate went to Europe for the summer, I showed her sparsely furnished room to a prospective subletter. He hesitated.

“I don’t mind the bohemian lifestyle,” he said, “But I believe there is more furniture in a jail cell.” 

I also played drums—briefly—in a band called the Weekend Bohemians. Or Bohemian Weekend, depending on which band member you asked. Our name dispute was one of a number of “creative differences” that ended my tenure with the band after just one gig. At least I had looked the part, perched behind my drum kit, in dark specs (a la Jean-Luc Godard), a striped boatneck shirt and a beret.  

A Glorification of Art…and Poverty

Alors, back to Paree and Bohemianism in the 1830s…

Bohemianism, in origin, glorified art…and poverty. La vie de la Boheme meant believing it and living it, both with a passion. Mind you, few artists at the time viewed their metier as a wage-earning profession. France had a patronage system, centuries old, in which painters and writers, musicians and playwrights were supported by sponsors in the noble classes and the haute bourgeoisie. 

Sponsored artists then “sang for their supper.” They created art—and also infused Parisian salon life with ideas, gaiety and (often) outrageous behavior. Many artists found this demeaning, this art-pro-quo dependency. They attended the requisite salons, but after consuming a solid meal and copious drink courtesy of their well-heeled hosts, they acted out with anger, resentment and mockery. In other words, they acted like Bohemians, and Paris salon society loved them. 

The word bohemian comes from Bohemia, a region in what is now the Czech Republic. Its association with an impoverished artistic lifestyle in Paris is a misnomer. In the early19th century, Paris saw an influx of Romani people (formerly called Gypsies). The Romani were mistakenly thought to hail from Bohemia. And their peripatetic (or vagabond) lifestyle was closely associated with artists. So the name stuck.

The Founders

The formation of le Petite Cénacle in 1830 marked the birth of Bohemianism. However, two events that same year were seminal in its emergence.

One event was political. Louis Philippe rose to the throne and established the July Monarchy. He would remain in power for 18 years as King of the French and the last monarch the country would see. His reign was marked by conservative policies, industrialization, colonial expansion and the abandonment of populist reforms. A vast income gap grew between the bourgeoisie and urban poor and civil unrest increased. The Bohemians, critics say, were children of the 1830 revolution and of Romanticism—and they lived in direct contrast to the rising bourgeoisie whose golden time it was. 

The other event was cultural. Victor Hugo’s play “Hernani”
 premiered at the Comédie-Francaise, a stage regarded as a bastion of classical tradition. The play presents an entangled love story set in the Spanish court of 1519, and its premier marked a turning point in French literature and theater as romanticism (represented by Hugo and his circle) would begin to eclipse classicism. Actors abandoned the wooden style noble of the past. They moved about freely and spoke expressively. Thus, the premier of Hernani was seen by classicists as an attack upon French culture itself. And it became know as a battle: La Bataille d’Hernani.

For theatrical premiers, it was common to stuff the theater with an audience of hired supporters—called claquers. For this premier, a young poet Petrus Borel was engaged to collect a hundred rowdy students from the Quartier Latin. Their task was to fill seats and guffaw at passages where Borel had instructed them to do so. The students did so with gusto, and their choruses drew counter hoots from the classicists. Litter was tossed and a few punches, as well. A real brouhaha. The play got poor reviews but soon was regarded as a success and a key victory for romanticism over classicism. 

A Turning Point

La Bataille d’Hernani also marked a turning point between generations of writers. The Bohemians of le Petite Cénacle, also known as la Bohème Galante, Les Jeune France, and camaraderie de Bouzingos, became infamous for their drunken revelry, noisy impropriety, and outrageous dress. Their motto: “Èpater la Bourgeoisie” or shock, scandalize, flabbergast the stuffy middle class. 

Le Petit Cénacle had—if not rules—some common practices:

They adopted noms de Bohème: 

Théophile Donner de Senteny became Philothée O’Neddy. 

Gerard Labrunie became Gerard de Nerval.

They wore outlandish costumes and hairstyles: red velvet robes, black capes, Medieval garb, clown shoes:

Petrus Borel wore a wide brimmed hat with long ribbons to the waist.

He looked like a Spanish count from ages past.

Théophile Gautier wore a pink velvet doublet or waistcoat.

They lived half in dreams:

Friends of Gérard de Nerval found him on street corners, lost in an inner ecstasy; before greeting him, they stood before him and patiently waited for him to first emerge from his reverie.

They smoked like fiends and glorified it at gatherings of le Cigaret Club. A verse from their anthem:

“Smoke, smoke. Let us get drunk on dreams,

And ask tobacco for oblivion!

Alas, life’s passing, all things are brief

In a useless life.”

They reveled and reveled: 

They held naked parties where they drank alcoholic punch from human skulls.

Or so they said. They lied about most of this and much more; lying was part of scandalizing the bourgeoisie.

As for creative productivity—poems, plays, paintings—God knows when they got created but they did. The Bohemians published in newspapers Le Siecle, Le Figaro and l’Artistes and La Presse, the latter two edited by Houssaye. In 1835, de Nerval received an inheritance and created a publication Le Monde Dramatique to publish works by his bohemian brethren.

Le Petite Cénacle lasted three years before members scattered, some to travel. But throughout the 1830s, they reconvened in various configurations and with a knack for reinvention. Petrus Borel moved from the Quartier Latin to the Right Bank where he founded “Le Camp de Tartares.” Next to his apartment was a garden where members of les Tartares lounged in the nude and in full public view until they were threatened with arrest. After a year, the landlord gave them the boot, and Borel was back to the Quartier Latin. His new place on rue d’Enfer was the scene of raucous parties and wild dancing. One dance was le Gallop Inferno; it was a forerunner of the can-can. 

The group was then known as les Bouzingos. The origin of the name is cloudy; Houssaye said it evolved spontaneously during a wild dance around a flaming punchbowl. Dancers shouted out whatever came to mind. Two words merged: boudin (shandy) and go or goth. Whatever the truth, the Bouzingos reveled in the dark side, hung out in cemeteries, viewed human dissections at the medical school, and decorated their walls with human skulls. 

Another name change came in 1834: La Societé des Latifronts, or Society of the Noble Brows. Members shaved an inch or two of hair from their foreheads to create a lofty brow a la Victor Hugo. Hair on the sides of their heads went long, and they looked like lions. They completed the guise with pale skin and a melancholy air. 

Also in 1834, the group reconvened at the spacious apartment of artist Camille Rogier. It was located on Impasse de Doyenné, a run-down alleyway of condemned buildings near the Louvre. The apartment had an enormous salon with grandiose baroque panels and moldings, and it served well as a communal space. In effect, a Bohemian clubhouse. 

Gerard de Nerval took up a small corner in the apartment, though he seldom was there, being a noctambulist or night owl who wandered the city and slept who-knows-where. In contrast, Houssaye spent so much time there, he brought in a sleeping cot. Gautier lived across the street and was a frequent visitor. 

This time was the group’s golden Bohemia: They joyously recited poetry, staged plays, painted on the walls, and invited artists, writers, Bohemians all to dinners and parties. The apex of this time was a fancy dress ball La Fète des Truands or Party of the Crooks. Some say it was like a Medieval orgy.

Finally, the landlord kicked them out, and the original Bohemians went their separate ways. 

Houssaye later recalled the time: “Bohemia was our open revolt against all prejudices…almost against all laws. We had taken refuge there as if it were a citadel...It seemed as if our life would pass in the austere love of art, and in the carefree gaiety of the joys of love.”