i8o Paris: Grand-Hotel, 1874, p. 30. 146. "M. Degas, comment parler bien de cet ar- Notes 136. See Roland Barthes, "The Blue Guide" tiste essentiellement parisien, dont chaque oeuvre to Pages [19508], in Mythologies, Annette Lavers (trans.), contient autant de talent litteraire et philoso- 95~107 New York, 1972, pp. 74—77, for the classic anal- phique que d'art lineaire et de science de colora- ysis of the dehistoricizing procedures of the tion? . . . Puis voici des femmes a la porte d'un guidebook. cafe, le soir. II y en a une qui fait claquer son 137. See T. J. Clark's discussion of the mer- ongle contre sa dent, en disant: 'pas seulement ca,' etricious quality of Monet's picture in The Paint- qui est tout un poeme. Une autre etale sur la table ing of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and sa grande main gantee. Dans la fond, le boulevard His Followers, New York, 1984, pp. 70-72. dont le grouillement diminue peu a peu. C'est 138. UAssommoir was first published in 1877 encore une page d'histoire bien extraordinaire" by Renoir's patron, the publisher Georges Char- (Georges Riviere, "L'Exposition des impression- pentier. The first illustrated edition (with sixty il- nistes," L'Impressionniste, no. i [Apr. 6, 1877]; re- lustrations) was issued the following year by the printed in Lionello Venturi, Les Archives de Vlm- Parisian publishers Marpon and Flammarion. The pressionnisme, Paris, 1939, vol. 2, p. 313). Prints and Drawings Department of the Art Insti- 147. Carol Armstrong, "Duranty, Degas, and tute of Chicago recently acquired a copy of this the Realism of the Third Republic," paper pre- edition (no. 67 out of an edition of 130). sented at the annual meeting of the Nineteenth- 139. '"Monsieur, ecoutez done' . . . L'homme Century French Studies, Evanston, 111., 1987. la regarda de cote et s'en alia en sifflant plus fort" 148. "M. Degas semble avoir jete un defi aux ("Sir, please listen" . . . The man gave her a side philistins, c'est-a-dire aux classiques. Les Femmes glance and went on, whistling even louder). devant un cafe, le soir sont d'un realisme effrayant. 140. Susanna Barrows, "After the Commune: Ces creatures fardees, fletries, suant le vice, qui se Alcoholism, Temperance, and Literature in the rancontent avec cynisme leurs faits et gestes du Early Third Republic," in Consciousness and Class jour, vous les avez vues, vous les connaissez et Experience in Nineteenth-Century Europe, John M. vous les retrouverez tout a 1'heure sur le boule- Merriman (ed.), New York, 1979, pp. 205—18. vard" (Alexandre Pothey, "Beaux-Arts," Le Petit 141. Susanna Barrows, Distorting Mirrors: Vi- Parisien, Apr. 7, 1877; reprinted in Venturi, Les sions of the Crowd in Late Nineteenth-Century Archives, pp. 303 — 04). I have used the English France, New Haven, 1981, p. 61. translation in Clark, Painting of Modern Life, 142. Theresa Ann Gronberg uses the phrase p. 101. "urban slut" to describe the woman in Manet's La 149. "M. Degas ne manque ni de fantaisie, ni Prune ("Femmes de Brasserie," Art History 7, no. 3 d'esprit, ni d'observation dans ses aquarelles. II a [Sept. 1984]: 335). Theodore Reff is also very sure ramasse devant les tables d'estaminet, dans les (overdefinite, I think) about the moral semiology cafes-concerts, dans le corps de ballet, des types of depictions of female smoking and drinking. d'une verite cynique et quasi-bestiale, portant tous He calls Manet's sitter a "well-dresssd prostitute" les vices de la civilisation ecrits en grosses lettres and a "wistful prostitute" (Manet and Modern sur leur triple couche de platre. Mais son esprit a Paris, Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, la main lourde et 1'expression crue" (Bernadille, 1982, p. 76). Le Francais, Apr. 13, 1877; quoted in Clark, Paint- 143. Jean Sutherland Boggs et al., Degas, New ing of Modern Life, pp. 101, 291 n. 78). I have used York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1988, entry Clark's translation. no. 173, pp. 288-89. 150. "Les etudes dans les cafes du boulevard ne 144. I acknowledge Robert Herbert's assistance sont pas moins finies ni moins curieuses, bien que in "reading" this picture: Impressionism: Art, Lei- cruelles passablement. II est permis de critiquer sure and Parisian Society, New Haven, 1988, p. 71. une certaine accentuation des details. Mais 1'en- 145. In P. A. Lemoisne, Degas et son oeuvre, semble constitue une page incomparable du livre Paris, 1946, vol. 2, no. 419, the work is sub- anecdotique contemporain" (Jacques, UHomme titled "Un cafe, Blvd. Montmartre." Gronberg Libre, Apr. 12, 1877, quoted in Clark, Painting of ("Femmes de Brasserie") has identified the kind Modern Life, 291 n. 80). of cafe depicted by Degas as a boite a femmes. 151. Regulationist rules required that prostitutes