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1-2. The cabarets of the 16th and 17th centuries were either establishments selling “by the pot or by the pint” to passing customers, who drank standing at the bar or took their wine away; or cabarets à assiette, bars where customers ate and drank around tables. In Paris, cabaret wines were cheap, coming from the Orléans, Gâtin or Brie regions. Prostitutes, lute players, fortune tellers and pickpockets were to be found alongside courtesans and youths. Such scenes are portrayed by Bartolomeo Manfredi and Philippe de Champaigne.

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3-4. In the countryside, the cabaret was a Sunday treat after a week of hard labour and self-denial: there was nothing like abandoning oneself to the various pleasures of wine, games and dancing to forget the troubles of everyday life, as Gillis Van Tilborgh et Adriaen Jansz van Ostade show. They plunge us into scenes of rural life, where any excuse for a party will do.

5. Dance-halls appeared at the gates of Paris, Lyon and Metz towards the middle of the 18th century, and multiplied wherever excise duties had become exorbitantly high. “They allowed wine to flow in the Parisian region, since merchants could not buy and import it themselves.” Au Tambour Royal, Ramponneau’s first cabaret, quickly became one of the most prized entertainment spaces in western Paris. Amateurish frescoes represented the manager as Bacchus riding a barrel, or sandwiched between ‘Love’ and ‘Glory’, with his motto, “Monoye fait tout” [“Money does all”], and the following verses: “Voyez la France accourir au tonneau, Qui sert de trône à monsieur Ramponneau” [“Watch France running to the barrel / Which serves as the throne of Monsieur Ramponneau”]. Ramponneau sold wine at three sous per pint – one sou less than his counterparts at the barrière de La Courtille – whereas any type of wine, even the most basic Orleans wine, sold for twelve to fifteen sous in Paris itself. The resulting situation was only to be expected: an extraordinary number of customers inside and out – people would even queue to go in! The painting, completed by Fichel in 1877, is a reconstruction of the glory days of the establishment, when its owner moved the premises from La Courtille to Belleville aux Pecherons. Here he repeated the exercise, this time with white wine at three to three and a half sous per pint, again outpricing his competitors, who charged four and a half. The wine was the same both times, a guinguet (from the French for ‘jig’), a pale wine from the Paris region. People would sing: “Vive le vin de Ramponneau, C’est du nectar en perce!” [“Long live the wine of Ramponneau / It’s nectar in a barrel!”]. The main room of the original restaurant, expanded in 1778, could hold 600 people – market gardeners, carters, workers... – but also female aristocrats (such as Madame de Genlis, who spoke of the dancehall in her memoirs) who came for the thrill disguised as common women. The dancehalls were a place of consumption, fun and pleasure. Dodging the taxman may well have been part of the fun!

6. The guinguettes existed in another form after the Revolution, but moved to the banks of the Seine (see Luncheon of the Boating Party by Renoir) or the Marne. One of Auguste Renoir’s most famous paintings shows the Bal du Moulin de la Galette (Musée d’Orsay). When Dutch painters such as Jan Steen and Adriaen Jansz van Ostade painted their scenes of popular rejoicing, they searched especially for ‘characteristic’ figures. With scenes of sophisticated parties, Rococo painters like Watteau and Nicolas Lancret expressed their dream of a carefree, elegant life. Renoir gives us little of either. He enjoys showing us his characters’ mannerisms and conjures up a charming celebratory atmosphere. We discover a public ball; it is Sunday afternoon and the weather is fine. A joyful crowd of people from all levels of society share in the fun, dancing on the left, chatting on the right, smoking and drinking. The atmosphere is lively and joyful and, as in Luncheon of the Boating Party, wine plays an important part.