THE HYDROPATHES

For many years before the establishment of cabarets in Montmartre, small groups of artists, writers, and poets had met in cafés to discuss and spontaneously perform their work. But it was the modern vision and organizational skill of the young poet Emile Goudeau that transformed such casual get-togethers into significant sites of group entertainment, collaboration, and self-promotion. In 1878 Goudeau founded the Hydropathes, an eclectic society of writers, artists, and performers that met each Wednesday and Saturday in a Latin Quarter café.  For a year and a half, the group published a bimonthly journal, L'Hydropathe, and its meetings would formalize the role of the café as a non-institutional showplace for members of the Parisian literary and art worlds.  Members included old-guard Bon Bockers and the well-known satirical journalist-illustrator André Gill. But the Hydropathes also attracted a contingent of young people, such as Jules Lévy, Emile Cohl, Sapeck (Eugène Bataille), and Alphonse Allais.  Along with Goudeau, these four were to lead the postwar generation of artists and writers into the fields of fumiste battle in Montmartre.

Georges Lorin (Cabriol), "L'Hydropathe André Gill," hand-colored photo-relief cover for L'Hydropathe. 5 February 1879. Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Herbert D. and Ruth Schimmel Museum Library Fund. (Photo by Jack Abraham)