Background · 1899
Théâtre de la Bodinière
Address · 18, rue Saint-Lazare, 75009 Paris
Metro · Saint-Lazare (3, 12, 13, 14)
Today · Gone. The hall is gone; a restaurant occupies the premises.
The story
At 18 rue Saint-Lazare, in the 9th arrondissement, Charles Bodinier (1844-1911), former secretary general of the Comédie-Française who had run the Théâtre d'Application since 1888, opened a small hall in 1890 that soon became known as La Bodinière. It lived mainly on “matinées-causeries”: afternoon lectures, often followed by recitals, before an audience of aristocrats, wealthy bourgeois and intellectuals. Anatole France, François Coppée, Maurice Donnay and Francisque Sarcey spoke there; Robert de Montesquiou gave a lecture there on 17 January 1894 with the participation of Sarah Bernhardt, and Yvette Guilbert sang there in 1891 between two talks by Hugues Le Roux. Shadow-theatre shows were also staged there.
The venue was no stranger to esoteric circles. In March 1892, Paul Fort's Théâtre d'Art presented its last programme there, which included Les Noces de Sathan by Jules Bois, a writer close to MacGregor Mathers; the evening was a failure. Seven years later, in March 1899 according to the entry on Moina Mathers, the Mathers couple performed their “Rites of Isis” there in public, Egyptianising ceremonies they had until then celebrated in private settings: MacGregor played the hierophant Rameses, Moina the high priestess Anari. These performances helped make the Parisian Golden Dawn known beyond the circle of initiates.
Crowley's presence in the hall is not directly documented. The Aleister Crowley Timeline, however, places his first meeting with Mathers in Paris around May 1899 and states that he then attended the original stage production of the Rites of Isis, where he met the singer Susan Strong; the source does not name the theatre, and the date differs from the March date given elsewhere. Crowley, initiated into the Golden Dawn in London in November 1898, then rose rapidly through the order's first grades during 1899, before being received by Mathers in Paris in January 1900.
La Bodinière closed in 1902. According to Wikipedia, the premises at 18 rue Saint-Lazare are now occupied by a restaurant; the sources report no visible trace of the former lecture hall.
To be checked · Address to be checked.