Bal Mabille
File:Jean Béraud Le Bal Mabile.jpg]]
File:Le bal Mabile, Champs-Elysées - NYPL Digital Collections.jpg
The Bal Mabille, also known as Jardin Mabille and Mabille Gardens in English, was a fashionable open-air dance establishment on what is now Avenue Montaigne in Faubourg Saint-Honoré, Paris, extending from 49 to 53 in the modern street numbering.Jules Vallès, Le tableau de Paris, preface and notes by Marie-Claire Bancquart, Lettres françaises, Paris: Messidor, 1989, {{ISBN|9782209061495}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=O1SgAAAAMAAJ&q=Mabille%2C+illustre+jadis+par+la+%C2%ABreine+Pomar%C3%A9+%C2%BB%2C+C%C3%A9leste+Moga-+dor%2C+Rigolbochc+et+Chicard%2C+se+trouvait+%C3%A0+l%27emplacement+des+no%C3%AE+49+%C3%A0+53+de+l%27avenue+Montaigne. p. 338] {{in lang|fr}}. It was opened in 1831, when the area was still largely rural, was struck by shells during the siege of Paris in 1870–71, and closed in 1875. Both the polka and the can-can were reportedly introduced there.
History
The Bal Mabille was opened in 1831 by Monsieur Mabille, a dance instructor, and was originally only for his pupils. It was later opened to the public, and in 1844 his sons decided to refurbish it as a sort of enchanted garden, with sand paths, lawns, trees and shrubs, galleries and a grotto. It was equipped with 3,000 gas lamps, very modern for the time, and was thus able to stay open after dark. Coloured-glass globes illuminated the areas under trees, and strings of lights and chandeliers were suspended between them. There was an area with a roof for protection from rain, and the grounds contained a Chinese pavilion, artificial palm trees, and a merry-go-round. Charles Monselet described it as "gilded from top to bottom: trees, benches, vases, flowers ... nature glistening in gold, silver and precious stones".cited in [http://www.apophtegme.com/ROULE/champs01.pdf "Champs-Élysées (avenue des)"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141225220216/http://www.apophtegme.com/ROULE/champs01.pdf |date=2014-12-25 }}, Paris mon village: le faubourg du Roule et ses environs, Apophtegme.com, p. 7 (pdf): "Tout y est doré du haut en bas, les arbres, les bancs, les vases, les fleurs. Imaginez une nature brillante, en or, argent et pierres précieuses."
The entrance price was high, so that only the relatively well to do were able to frequent the establishment. It soon became the most fashionable dancing location of the period, although it had a reputation for attracting more foreigners in search of "pretty faces" than Parisians.Frédéric Loliée, adapted by Bryan O'Donnell, The Gilded Beauties of the Second Empire, New York: Brentano's / London: Long, 1910, {{OCLC|587420}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=wyzSAAAAMAAJ&q=Mabille+earned+an+unenviable+reputation&pg=PA327 pp. 71–75].William Walton, Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day, 10 vols., Volume 8 Street Scenes; Groups in Parks, etc., Philadelphia: Barrie, 1900, {{OCLC|187397912}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=Ka1VAAAAYAAJ&q=reminiscences+of+the+Jardin+Mabille&pg=PA174 214–16]. The garden had a reputation as a place for gentlemen to meet prostitutes.Hervé Maneglier, "Paris Impérial: La vie quotidienne sous le Second Empire", Paris, 1991, p. 87. The polka was introduced there by Élise Rosita Sergent, known as la reine Pomaré, and Élisabeth-Céleste Vénard, known as "Céleste Mogador",Emilio Sala, tr. Delia Casadei, The Sounds of Paris in Verdi's La Traviata, Cambridge Studies in Opera, New York: Cambridge University, 2013, {{ISBN|9781107009011}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=aaLqAAAAQBAJ&dq=Mabille+polka&pg=PA84 p. 84]. and the can-can is said to have been invented there.Rae Beth Gordon, Dances with Darwin, 1875-1910: Vernacular Modernity in France, Farnham, Surrey / Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate, 2009, {{ISBN|9780754652434}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=sDlcFE_lvgQC&q=at+the+Bal+Mabille&pg=PA51 p. 51, note 90]. Other noted dancers who appeared there during the Second Empire were Rigolboche and Rosalba. In 1870, in the siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War, the Bal Mabille was hit by shells.Vallès, [https://books.google.com/books?id=O1SgAAAAMAAJ&q=Mabille+obus+1870 p. 338]: "Si on ne dansait plus sur un volcan, on dansait sur des cendres. Les obus des deux sièges étaient tombés là-dedans" - "If one was no longer dancing on a volcano, one was dancing on ashes. The shells of the two sieges had fallen in there". Under the Third Republic, there was a shooting range there, and a fifty-piece orchestra led by Olivier Métra.
In literature and popular culture
Balzac mentions the Bal Mabille several times in La Comédie humaine as a place frequented by the kind of prostitute known at the time as a lorette,Honoré de Balzac: "[T]u rachètes tes fautes en t'amusant comme une lorette à Mabille", Cousin Bette; "habituée qu'elle était à lutter avec les sergents de ville au bal peu champêtre de Mabille", Le Cousin Pons. and a poem by Louis Aragon contains the line "Le secret de Paris n'est pas au bal Mabille" - "The secret of Paris is not in the Bal Mabille".Louis Aragon, "La Diane française": suivi de "En étrange pays dans mon pays lui-même", Paris: Seghers, 1946, repr. 1962, {{OCLC|459406673}}, p. 93.
Gustave Nadaud wrote the lyrics for a song called "Les reines de Mabille" (The Queens of Mabille"), with music by A. Pilati. In a 1942 rewrite of Charles Lecocq's 1872 operetta Les cent vierges (The Hundred Virgins), it is the setting of the first act, which features a song about the can-canning there.Gänzl and Lamb, pp. 330–335
In Hans Christian Andersen's "The Wood Nymph: A Tale of the 1867 Paris Exposition," the main character is amazed by the "Mabile" garden and joins the wild dancing.Hans Christian Andersen. Fairy Tales. Translated by Tiina Nunnally. Penguin Books, 2004.
In Act I of Puccini’s famous opera La Bohème, set in Paris during the 1840s, the character Marcello tells his landlord, Benoît, that he’s seen him at the “Mabil” engaged in a “sin of love.”
Mark Twain describes a brief visit in his book The Innocents Abroad.
In Ralph Adams Cram's ghost story No. 252 Rue M. le Prince, published in1895 but set ten years earlier, the narrator tells a friend "Here
is a chance for you to do the honors of your city in a manner which is faultless. Show me a real live ghost, and I will forgive Paris for having lost the Jardin Mabille".
References
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Sources
- {{cite book | last= Gänzl | first=Kurt|author2=Andrew Lamb | title= Gänzl's Book of the Musical Theatre | year= 1988| location= London | publisher= The Bodley Head | oclc= 966051934}}
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Category:1831 establishments in France
Category:1875 disestablishments in France