Part 3 - Boulevard Saint - Michel (1)

Edouard explains perfectly well the geography of the Boulevard Saint Michel and it’s quite a stretch that I walked with some enthusiasm but I have to say that enthusiasm diminished as I continued my walk up and down the famous, ‘Boul-Mich.’ Time, it seems, has robbed it of its former character and many of the venues I went to visit no longer exist. More of that later.
 
This part is devoted solely to my visit to the site of the famous Bal Bullier ballroom which was created by Francois Bullier in the mid-nineteenth century. It was a popular venue for dancing and drinking. The regular entrance fee was two francs on a Thursday night but as you will read on Saturday night it was only one franc.
 
It should also be noted that Jane Avril graced the Bal Bullier with her presence at the height of her own fame when she would attend and dance there on a Thursday night. This website is obviously devoted to her and so it would be remiss of me not to mention our Lady Jane should the opportunity arise.
 
So, let’s get back to Edouard and Bishop and allow Edouard to regale us with their experience of the Bal Bullier.
 
"Of course the proper name for the great thoroughfare of the Quartier Latin is the Boulevard Saint-Michel, but the boulevardiers call it the Boul' Mich', because it is easier to say."
 
"The Boul' Mich' is the student's highway to relaxation. Mention of it at once recalls whirling visions of brilliant cafés, with their clattering of saucers and glasses, the shouting of their white-aproned garçons, their hordes of gay and wicked damsels dressed in the costliest and most fashionable gowns, and a multitude of riotous students howling class songs and dancing and parading to the different cafés as only students can. This is the head-quarters of the Bohemians of real Bohemia, whose poets haunt the dim and quaint cabarets and read their compositions to admiring friends; of flower-girls who offer you un petit bouquet, seulement dix centimes, and pin it into your button-hole before you can refuse; of Turks in picturesque native costume selling sweetmeats; of the cane man loaded down with immense sticks; of the stems a yard long; of beggars, gutter-snipes, hot-chestnut venders, ped-lers, singers, actors, students, and all manner of queer characters."
 
"The life of the Boul' Mich' begins at the Panthéon, where repose the remains of France's great men, and ends at the Seine, where the gray Gothic towers and the gargoyles of Notre-Dame look down disdainfully upon the giddy traffic below. The eastern side of the Boul' is lined with cafés, cabarets, and brasseries including the sound of the wickedest café in Paris, the Café d'Harcourt."
 
"It was often our wont on Saturday evenings to saunter along the Boul', and sometimes to visit the cafés. To Bishop particularly it was always a revelation and a delight, and he was forever studying and sketching the types that he found there. He was intimately acquainted in all the cafés along the line,"
 
"The Boul' Mich' is at its glory on Saturday nights, for the students have done their week's work, and the morrow is Sunday. Nearly everybody goes to the Bal Bullier. This is separated from the crowded Boul' Mich' by several squares of respectable dwelling-houses and shops, and a dearth of cafés prevails thereabout. At the upper end of the Luxembourg is a long stone wall brilliantly bedecked with lamps set in clusters,—the same wall against which Maréchal Ney was shot (a striking monument across the way recalls the incident). At one end of this yellow wall is an arched entrée, resplendent with the glow of many rows of electric lights and lamps, which reveal the coloured bas-reliefs of dancing students and grisettes that adorn the portal. Nearby stands a row of voitures, and others are continually dashing up and depositing Latin-Quarter swells with hair parted behind and combed forward toward the ears, and dazzling visions of the demi-monde in lace, silks, and gauze. And there is a constantly arriving stream of students and gaudily dressed women on foot. Big gardes municipaux stand at the door like stone images as the crowd surges past."

"To-night is one-franc night. An accommodating lady at the box-office hands us each a broad card, and another, au vestiaire, takes our coats and hats and charges us fifty centimes for the honour. Descending the broad flight of softly carpeted red stairs, a brilliant, tumultuous, roaring vision bursts upon us, for it is between the dances, and the visitors are laughing and talking and drinking. The ball-room opens into a generous garden filled with trees and shrubbery ingeniously devised to assure many a secluded nook, and steaming garçons are flying hither and thither serving foaming bocks and coloured syrups to nymphs in bicycle bloomers, longhaired students under tam o'shanters, and the swells peculiar to le Quartier Latin."

"The musicians were now playing a schottische, but large circles would be formed here and there in the hall, where clever exhibitions of fancy dancing would be given by students and by fashionably gowned damsels with a penchant for displaying their lingerie and hosiery. The front of the band-stand was the favourite place for this. Here four dashing young women were raising a whirlwind of lingerie and slippers, while the crowd applauded and tossed sous at their feet."

"Next to us stood a fat, cheery-faced little man, bearing the unmistakable stamp of an American tourist. His hands were in his pockets, his silk hat was tipped back, and his beaming red face and bulging eyes showed the intensity of his enjoyment. Without the slightest warning the slippered foot of one of these dancers found his shining tile and sent it bounding across the floor. For a moment the American was dazed by the suddenness and unearthly neatness of the feat; then he emitted a whoop of wonder and admiration, and in English exclaimed,—"You god-darned bunch of French skirts—say, you're all right, you are, Marie! Bet you can't do it again!"
 
"He confided to Bishop that his name was Pugson and that he was from Cincinnati."
 
"Why," he exclaimed, joyously, "Paris is the top of the earth! You artists are an enviable lot, living over here all the time and painting— Gad! look at her!" and he was pushing his way through the crowd to get a better view of an uncommonly startling dancer, who was at the moment an indeterminate fluffy bunch of skirts, linen, and hosiery. Ah, what tales he will tell of Paris when he returns to Cincinnati, and how he will be accused of exaggerating!"
 
"The four girls forming the centre of attraction were now doing all manner of astonishing things possible only to Parisian feminine anatomy. In another circle nearby was Johnson, the American architect, stirring enthusiastic applause as he hopped about, Indian fashion, with a little brunette whose face was hidden in the shadow of her immense hat, her hair en bandeau, à la de Mérode. Could this really be the quiet Johnson of the Ecole, who but a week ago had been showing his mother and charming sister over Paris? And there, too, was his close friend, Walden, of Michigan, leading a heavy blonde to the dance! There were others whom we knew. The little Siamese was flirting desperately with a vision in white standing near his friend, a Japanese, who, in turn, was listening to the cooing of a clinging bloomer girl. Many sober fellows whom I had met at the studio were there, but they were sober now only in the sense that they were not drunk. And there were law students, too, in velveteen caps and jackets, and students in the sciences, and students in music, and négligé poets, littérateurs, and artists, and every model and cocotte who could furnish her back sufficiently well to pass the censorship of the severe critic at the door. If she be attractively dressed, she may enter free; if not, she may not enter at all."
 
"The gayety increased as the hours lengthened; the dancing was livelier, the shouting was more vociferous, skirts swirled more freely, and thin glasses fell crashing to the floor. It was pleasanter out in the cool garden, for it was dreadfully hard to keep from dancing inside. The soft gleam of the coloured lamps and lanterns was soothing, and the music was softened down to an echo. The broken rays of the lanterns embedded in the foliage laid bright patterns on the showy silks of the women, and the garçons made no noise as they flitted swiftly through the mazes of shrubbery."
 
"At one end of the garden, surrounded by an hilarious group, were four wooden rocking-horses worked on springs. 'Astride of two of these were an army officer and his companion, a bloomer girl, who persistently twisted her ankles round her horse's head. The two others were ridden by a poet and a jauntily attired grisette. The four were as gleeful as children."
 
"A flash-light photographer did a driving trade at a franc a flash, and there were a shooting-gallery, a fortune-teller, sou-in-the-slot machines, and wooden figures with pads on their other ends, by punching which we might see how hard we could hit."
 
"We are back in the ball-room again,—it is hard to keep out. The gayety is at its height, the Bal Bullier is in full swing. The tables are piled high with saucers, and the garçons are bringing more. The room is warm and suffocating, the dancing and flirting faster than ever. Now and then a line is formed to "crack the whip," and woe betide anything that comes in its way!"
 
"Our genial, generous new friend from Cincinnati was living the most glorious hour of his life. He had not been satisfied until he found and captured the saucy little wretch who had sent his hat spinning across the room; so now she was anchored to him, and he was giving exhibitions of American grace and agility that would have amazed his friends at home. For obviously he was a person of consequence there. When he saw us his face beamed with triumph, and he proudly introduced us to his mignonette-scented conquest, Mad-dem-mo-zel Madeleine (which he pronounced Madelyne), "the queen of the Latin Quarter. But blamed if I can talk the blooming lingo!" he exclaimed, ruefully. "You translate for me, won't you?" he appealed to Bishop, and Bishop complied. In paying compliments thus transmitted to Madeleine he displayed an adeptness that likely would have astounded his good spouse, who at that moment was slumbering in a respectable part of Paris."
 
"At exactly a quarter-past midnight the band played the last piece, the lights began to go out, and the Bal Bullier was closed."
 
Sadly, the Bal Bullier closed its doors for the final time in 1940. On its site was built the Jean Sarrailh University Sports Centre of the CROUS of Paris.
 
The site itself was not easy to locate but fortunately for me the statue opposite the Bal Bullier still stands to this day and it proved useful in locating the exact position of the Bal Bullier. I gained some satisfaction that the statue which would have been seen by Edouard, Bishop and indeed, Jane Avril was now being seen and inspected by me.
 
I was also able to enjoy the nearby Jardin du Luxembourg and walk through the beautiful gardens on what was a bright, warm and sunny afternoon. Life it seems has its compensations. 

So, Edouard and Bishop leave the Bal Bullier and continue back down the Boulevard Saint - Michel which is where we will pick up with them the next time. 
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All text taken from, Bohemian Paris of Today (Chapter 4 - Boulevard Saint-Michel) by Cucuel and Morrow and Illustrated by Edouard Cucuel - 1899. All photos - Craig R. Whitfield (2026)