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Café des Ambassadeurs

Café-Concert at Les Ambassadeurs by Edgar Degas, 1876–77
Café des AmbassadeursLocation within Paris
Address	1 Avenue Gabriel 8th arrondissement of Paris France
Coordinates	48°52′02″N 2°19′18″E / 48.86732°N 2.32155°E / 48.86732; 2.32155
Designation	Café-concert
Opened	1857
Closed	1929

The Café des Ambassadeurs, also known as Les Ambassadeurs or Les Ambass', was a café-concert located in the Champs-Élysées district, at 1 Avenue Gabriel, in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, which opened in 1857 and closed in 1929.

The Café des Ambassadeurs was created at the end of the 18th century near the hotels designed to house foreign ambassadors in Paris, built to the designs of the architect Jacques-Ange Gabriel. The café was restored in the early 19th century and, around 1830, a few singers were allowed to entertain the public on a more or less improvised stage. Shortly before 1843, a new pavilion replaced the existing one, this time with an outdoor stage.

In 1847, three authors and composers of music, Paul Henrion, Victor Parizot and Ernest Bourget refused to pay for their drinks because their music was played there without them receiving any royalties. They were sued, but they in turn took the manager to court. This was the beginning of the SACEM (Société des Auteurs, Compositeurs et Éditeurs de Musique).

During the 1850s and 1860s, the reputation of the establishment gradually surpassed that of the Alcazar d'Été, because although it presented more or less the same acts, it was more chic and attracted a more upmarket clientele. With the arrival of Pierre Ducarre, a new director (1874 to 1902), the café-concert had its heyday during the Belle Époque in Paris when Les Ambassadeurs became a regular destination of some of the best known figures of art and the demi-monde. Situated in one of the most beautiful districts of Paris and in the open air, it had the distinct advantage in the summer season of fresh air, whereas other establishments of this kind, generally badly arranged from the point of view of ventilation, become in the summer months real suffocators.

Painters such as Edgar Degas (who painted the Café-Concert at Les Ambassadeurs and Singer with a Glove here) and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec portrayed visitors at the night club and almost every vaudeville and music hall entertainer that mattered in those days performed there, such as Aristide Bruant, Zulma Bouffar, Polaire, Paula Brébion, Paulus, Eugénie Fougère, Anna Judic, Fragson, and last but not least Mistinguett and Yvette Guilbert.

The outbreak of the First World War in 1914 changed everything. Les Ambassadeurs reopened in the summer of 1915 with the stars of the moment, but the Belle Époque atmosphere was gone. As the clientele was becoming increasingly scarce, the director of the Casino Kursaal of Ostend, Edmond Sayag, decided in 1925 to transform the place into an American-style music hall, a play garden, a restaurant-theatre, a theatre and then, finally, into anything and everything. It closed in 1929 when it was demolished and replaced by a théâtre built in 1931, also called Les Ambassadeurs, and a new restaurant bearing the same name.

References

1. ^ (in French) L'Alcazar d'été et les Ambassadeurs, Du Temps des cerises aux Feuilles mortes.net (Access date: 20 December 2024)
2. (in French) Ernest Bourget, défenseur du droit d'auteur, par Jacques-Marie Vaslin, Le Monde, 28 September 2009
3. (in French) Caradec & Weill (1980). Le café-concert, p. 21

Sources

• (in French) Caradec, François & Alain Weill (1980). Le café-concert, Paris: Hachette/Massin ISBN 2-01-006940-4

• Cabarets in Paris
• Entertainment venues in Paris
• Music venues completed in 1860
• Former theatres in Paris