File:About Paris (1903) (14595239530).jpg

Identifier: aboutparis03davi (find matches)
Title: About Paris
Year: 1903 (1900s)
Authors: Davis, Richard Harding, 1864-1916 Gibson, Charles Dana, 1867-1944, illus
Subjects:
Publisher: New York, Harper
Contributing Library: Brigham Young University-Idaho, David O. McKay Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University-Idaho

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
at is much finer andmuch more pretentious than Bruants shop, andis of wider fame. It is, indeed, of an entirelydifferent class, but it comes in here under thehead of the show-places of Paris at night. Itwas originally a sort of club where journalistsand artists and poets met round the tables ofa restaurant-keeper who happened to be a pa-tron of art as well, and fitted out his caf6 withthe canvases of his customers, and adopted theirsuggestions in the arrangement of its decoration.The outside world of Paris heard of these gath-erings at the Black Cat, as the cafe and clubwere called, and of the wit and spirit of its ha-bitues, and sought admittance to its meetings,which was at first granted as a great privilege.But at the present day the cafe has been turnedover into other hands, and is a show-place pureand simple, and a most interesting one. Thecafe proper is fitted throughout with heavy blackoak, or something in imitation of it. There areheavy broad tables and high wainscoting and an
Text Appearing After Image:
THE SHOW-PLACES OF PARIS 73 immense fireplace and massive rafters. To setoff the sombreness of this, the walls are coveredwith panels in the richest of colors, by Steinlen,the most imaginative and original of the Parisianillustrators, in all of which the black cat appearsas a subject, but in a different role and with sep-arate treatment. Upon one panel hundreds ofblack cats race over the ocean, in another theyare waltzing with naiads in the woods, and inanother they are whirling through space overred - tiled roofs, followed by beautiful youngwomen, gendarmes, and boulevardiers in hotpursuit. And in every other part of the cafethe black cat appears as frequently as did thehead of Charles I. in the writings of Mr. Dick.It stalks stuffed in its natural skin, or carved inwood, with round glass eyes and long red tongue,or it perches upon the chimney-piece wMth backarched and tail erect, peering down from amongthe pewter pots and salvers. The gas-jets shootfrom the mouths of wrought-iron ca

Note About Images