The Folies Bergère was the first music hall to open in Paris: Curious customers first entered its doors on May 1, 1869. In the early days the productions consisted of a hodgepodge of circus acts and odd-ball entertainers. On a given night, patrons might be lucky enough to see a multi-talented juggler, described on the bill as a "prodigious magician who swallows live snakes, rips open his stomach and pulls out rosaries and pearls of the Orient which he presents to the ladies."

The first "revue" dates to 1886. By 1907, elaborate, if none too revealing costumes were being featured. Actually, young ladies began to appear in the altogether as early as 1893, initially the result of a competition between artist's models concerning which of them had the prettiest legs. Before the evening was over, the competition got a little out of hand, and the rest is history.

The Folies Bergère was depicted by many artists, including Edouard Manet (as seen at the top of the page). To the right is Les Folies-Bergère, a rejected illustration for J.K. Huysmans' "Croquis Parisiens", 1880, done by Jean-Louis Forain.

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