In 1958, he bought his Château de Vauvenargues just outside of Aix, at the base of Mont Sainte-Victoire, the mountain made famous by his beloved Cézanne. Picasso is known to have visited Les Deux Garçons in the mid-20th century. In 1792, it was re-opened as a café called Café Julien and in 1840, when two waiters purchased it, the café was christened “Les Deux Garçons.” Today, “Les 2G,” as the legendary meeting place is sometimes called, is really more a brasseriethan a café. He transformed the ground floor into this club and it soon became the site of volatile arguments between supporters of the old regime and local revolutionaries until it was closed in 1790. The property exchanged hands a number of times before a Monsieur Guion purchased it in the mid-18th century and sought to create a meeting place for the aristocrats of Aix-en-Provence, one modeled after the English clubs that were popular in France at that time. Most accounts thereafter refer to the building as Hôtel de Gantès ( hôtel, referring to the French usage of the term for a sumptuous townhouse). The 17th century mansion is first mentioned in the historic accounts of Aix (that I read) as being the 1660s home of Francois de Gantès, lawyer in the court of the King Louis XIV. Les Deux Garçons’ roots reach back to 1792, but 53 cours Mirabeau had a long history before it became a café.
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