ABSTRACT

The Parisian artistic vanguard was an international one. However an increasingly complex and ever-changing geography of the city emerged and developed over the years through these men and women were determined to change the world and change life. Coffee shops held a very special position in new urban mythology. The failure of the vanguards' crusade may have turned a fundamental page in the history of modernism. In any case, it put an end to the blissful period of the little Caf Cert. Being hostile to Montparnasse, the Surrealists liked to meet in the great cafs of Saint-Germain-des-Prs, initially Le Flore. A year later the caf became one of the places where the Surrealists carried out their experiments. The Caf du Globe became the holy seat of the little ecumenical movement of Breton, author of Nadja. Maxime Alexandre explains that it was common knowledge that the Caf du Globe, near the porte Saint-Denis, had become an important center of Surrealist activity.