The aim of this essay is to map the Parisian cultural life of the Second Empire (1851-1870), which coincides with the literary life of Goncourt brothers (Jules de Goncourt would indeed die on 20 June 1870). Restaurants, cafés, theatres, ballrooms and salons constitute the places of ‘sociability’ of the two writers and indeed of all writers and artists of the time. Their diary, the Journal, recounts the details, anecdotes and landscapes of Paris that, in the words of Baudelaire, created the very idea of modernity.

The following questions, to be answered at the end of this paper, have guided the emphasis of this research:

• Is there a meaningful link between certain places and events of cultural importance in the artistic life of the Second Empire?
• Is it always possible to define the boundaries of ‘bourgeois society’ in contrast to the places of artists, of the proponents of ‘l’art pour l’art’ and of the ‘vie bohème’?
• Which places in Paris are most frequently referred to in the works of the Goncourts, and what significance can we derive from this?

With the data obtained and modelled through a reading of the Journal we are in a position to answer these questions and display with precision the temporal and spatial ‘occurrences’ of the Goncourts’ frequentations with writers such as Flaubert, Sainte-Beuve, Murger, Champfleury, Saint-Victor and Gautier; and artists such as Gavarni and Courbet.