The Chat Noir’s Successors Mme Salis undertook several more tours, with Dominique Bonnaud narrating the shadow plays. While Bonnaud’s imitation of Salis was, by all accounts, flawless, the tours were not a success.** The spirit of the Chat Noir, or at least its commercial momentum, had passed on. to other establishments. With more or less inventiveness, these elab- orated the formula of their common model: a striking decorative *© Lucien Boyer, Qui était beau mon village, 23 #7 “The Chat Noir cabaret is leaving the rue Victor-Massé, Where will it next hang its shingle? No one knows; this Cat is very mysterious.’ Edmond Deschaumes, ‘Le Cabaret du Chat Noir", Revue eneydopédique, 16 Jan. 1897, 41. In bis review of the last shadow show piven at the Chat Noir, Clairs de lune by Fragerolle and Riviére, Gustave Geffroy notes that ‘the Parisian cat will soon become a Russian one, hibemating in Saint Petersburg before its reincarnation om a Parisian boulevard’. Ibid. 47. According to Herbert, the lease was taken over by 2 wealthy, retired soap dealer (La Chanson 4 Montmartre, 180). “8 Bonnaud recounted the final years of the cabaret in ‘La Fin du Chat Noir, ou Jes derniers Mohicars de la Butte’, a memoir that appeared seri:lly in Lex Annales politiques et bit- téraites from 22. March to 5 July 1925.