Scene · 1891-1893
Auberge du Clou
Address · 30, avenue Trudaine, 75009 Paris
Metro · Anvers (2) / Pigalle (2, 12)
Today · In operation. A restaurant still occupies the address (Le Clou).
The story
The Auberge du Clou opened at the end of the 1880s on the corner of avenue Trudaine, in a neighborhood full of cabarets. In the basement, a shadow theater in the spirit of the Chat Noir was run by the Catalan painter and critic Miguel Utrillo, around whom gravitated several Spanish artists living in Montmartre, such as Santiago Rusiñol and Ramon Casas. The establishment combined a restaurant on the ground floor with small stages, a formula then very much in vogue at the foot of the Butte.
Churton relates that Satie, very short of money after the 1892 Salon de la Rose+Croix, had his ballet Uspud, to a libretto by Contamine de Latour, performed or presented here. Stung by the regulars' criticism, he bet that he would get it accepted by the Opéra, which failed. It was in this circle that he met Suzanne Valadon, a former acrobat and model and the mother of young Maurice Utrillo; their affair began in January 1893.
In musical memory the place is also associated with the first meetings between Satie and Debussy, even though Churton places those at Bailly's. The address still houses a restaurant, making it one of the few places on the route where you can still sit down. The decor has changed, but the location on the corner of avenue Trudaine remains the same, a few meters from Guaita's former home. In a few steps you can thus link the Catalan artists' cabaret and the Lorraine magus's salon.
To be checked · Coordinates estimated from the street number.