Scene · 1880s-1890s
Former Café Voltaire
Address · 1, place de l'Odéon, 75006 Paris
Metro · Odéon (4, 10)
Today · Other use. Café closed in the mid-20th century; premises of the publisher Flammarion since 1956, with a Histoire de Paris information panel.
The story
The Café Voltaire occupied the ground floor of a building on place de l'Odéon, opposite the theater. Frequented since the Romantic era, it is mentioned by Balzac. At the end of the 19th century it became a meeting place for Symbolist poets and critics, close to the Latin Quarter and the literary journals of the Left Bank. The café's setting also attracted actors and students. People also came to read the newspapers.
Churton places Gauguin here, back from Brittany, talking with Aurier, Morice, Redon, Carrière, Moréas and Mirbeau before his departure for Tahiti in 1891. The Odéon neighborhood is also where Maurice Barrès introduced Victor-Émile Michelet to Stanislas de Guaita in the early 1880s; according to Michelet, the two young poets were on familiar terms within an hour. The book does not specify which café. Gauguin left for Tahiti in the spring of 1891.
The Café Voltaire closed in the mid-20th century; the publisher Flammarion bought the premises in 1956, and a Histoire de Paris panel now recalls its past. Churton publishes a photograph of its facade. Place de l'Odéon, with its theater, has on the other hand kept the look it had at the end of the 19th century. The square is a convenient starting point for walking to Saint-Sulpice or the Luxembourg Gardens.
To be checked · The book does not say that the Michelet-Guaita meeting took place specifically at the Café Voltaire, only “near the Odéon”.