while the City of Paris agreed to supply rooms for the presentation. So, from May 15 through July 15, the first "free" exhibition of contemporary art showed more than 5000 works by more than 400 artists. Although sustained by Mesureur, deputy chairman of the Council of Paris and Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of France, by Frédéric Hattat, chairman of the Fine Art commission in the same council, by Albert Dubois-Pillet, commanding the Republican Guard, member of the Grand Orient de France, the beginning of the Company, considered as a nest of revolutionaries, were difficult. Establishment June 11, 1884, Maître Coursault, notary at Montmorency, Val-d'Oise, officially confirmed the establishment of the Société Article 1 of the organization's statutes reads, ...the purpose of Société des Artistes Indépendants – based on the principle of abolishing admission jury – is to allow the artists to present their works to public judgement with complete freedom. Groupe vs. Société Members of the Groupe challenged this foundation and succeeded to have an exhibition arranged "for the victims of the recent cholera epidemic", inaugurated December 1, 1884, by Lucien Boué, President of the Paris City Council. But financially the result was a catastrophe. Nevertheless, in spring 1885, the "Groupe" organised its next exhibition, this time with some success. Early exhibitions The Salon des Indépendants arose through the need by artists to present their works to the general public independently, rather than through the official selective method of the "Salon" (created by Louis XIV). A small collective of innovative artists—Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Camille Pissarro along with Albert Dubois-Pillet, Odilon Redon, Georges Seurat, Paul Signac—created the Salon des Indépendants. The right to present their works to the public with no restrictions was their only condition. Article no. 1 of the By-laws of the organization: "The purpose of Société des Artistes Indépendants—based on the principle of abolishing admission jury—is to allow the artists to present their works to public judgement with complete freedom". On 1 December 1884, Lucien Boué, President of the Paris City Council, opened the first Salon des Artistes Indépendants at the Palais Polychrome (near the Palais de l'Industrie). The Salon became the refuge for artworks deemed unacceptable by the traditional Salon. Among the works exhibited were Seurat's "La baignade à Asnières" Signac's "Le Pont d'Austerlitz", and works of Henri-Edmond Cross, Odilon Redon, Albert Dubois-Pillet, Louis Valtat, Armand Guillaumin, Charles Angrand, Paul Cézanne,