You are there: Les Cabarets du Ciel et de l’Enfer

i09.com: Paris of the 1890s had several supernatural nightlife options, each of them with marvelously outlandish gimmicks. In the 1899 book Bohemian Paris of To-Day by William Chambers Morrow and Édouard Cucuel, the authors visit several of the City of Lights darker drinking destinations, such as Cabaret de l’Enfer (“The Cabaret of the Inferno”), a Satanically themed nightclub in Montmartre that abutted another cabaret called Cabaret du Ciel (“The Cabaret of the Sky”), a divinely themed bar where Dante and Father Time greeted visitors and comely ladies dressed as angels pranced around teasing patrons.

 

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FSK: Are the French crazy or what? They are crazy, alright! The truth is, they are crazy like a fox. I will tell you the story of two side-by-side cabarets created by two Frenchmen who hated each other. The one who owned the Cabaret of Hell was an ex-clergyman. The other guy who called his establishment Cabaret of Heaven was an ex-convict and known in the neighborhood as “the morally bankrupt.” The drinks at the Cabaret of Hell were more expensive than the cheap drinks served at the Cabaret of Heaven, but the food was bloody awful. The owner explained: “Mes chers amis, my drinks are expensive because all those who are going to hell dead or alive come here. They come here, because it is more fun than the other place. There are no rules here, like in hell. In heaven, MON DIEU! there is nothing but rules! So where you would rather prefer to go? To Hell or to Heaven?”

 

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William Chambers Morrow: Presently we reached the gilded gates of Le Cabaret du Ciel. They were bathed in a cold blue light from above. Angels, gold-lined clouds, saints, sacred palms and plants, and other paraphernalia suggestive of the approach to St. Peter’s domain, filled all the available space about the entree. A bold white placard, “Bock, I Franc,” was displayed in the midst of it all. Dolorous church music sounded within, and the heavens were unrolled as a scroll in all their tinsel splendor as we entered to the bidding of an angel.

Flitting about the room were many more angels, all in white robes and with sandals on their feet, and all wearing gauzy wings swaying from their shoulder-blades and brass halos above their yellow wigs. These were the waiters, the garcons of heaven, ready to take orders for drinks. One of these, with the face of a heavy villain in a melodrama and a beard a week old, roared unmelodiously, “The greetings of heaven to thee, brothers! Eternal bliss and happiness are for thee. Mayst thou never swerve from its golden paths! Breathe thou its sacred purity and renovating exaltation. Prepare to meet thy great Creator and don’t forget the garcon!”

A very long table covered with white extended the whole length of the chilly room, and seated at it, drinking, were scores of candidates for angelship, mortals like ourselves. Men and women were they, and though noisy and vivacious, they indulged in nothing like the abandon of the Boul’ Mich’ cafes. Gilded vases and candelabra, together with foamy bocks, somewhat relieved the dead whiteness of the table. The ceiling was an impressionistic rendering of blue sky, fleecy clouds, and golden stars, and the walls were made to represent the noble enclosure and golden gates of paradise.

“Brothers, your orders! Command me, thy servant!” growled a ferocious angel at our elbows, with his accent de la Villette, and his brass halo a trifle askew. Mr. Thompkins had been very quiet, for he was Wonder in the flesh, and perhaps there was some distress in his face, but there was courage also. The suddenness of the angel’s assault visibly disconcerted him, he did not know what to order. Finally he decided on a verre de Chartreuse, green. Bishop and I ordered bocks.

“Two sparkling draughts of heaven’s own brew and one star-dazzler!” yelled our angel. “Thy will be done,” came the response from a hidden bar. Obscured by great masses of clouds, through whose intervals shone golden stars, an organ continually rumbled sacred music, which had a depressing rather than a solemn effect, and even the draughts of heaven’s own brew and the star-dazzler failed to dissipate the gloom.

Suddenly, without the slightest warning, the head of St. Peter, whiskers and all, appeared in a hole in the sky, and presently all of him emerged, even to his ponderous keys clanging at his girdle. He gazed solemnly down upon the crowd at the tables and thoughtfully scratched his left wing. From behind a dark cloud he brought forth a vessel of white crockery (which was not a wash-bowl) containing (ostensibly) holy water. After several mysterious signs and passes with his bony hands he generously sprinkled the sinners below with a brush dipped in the water; and then, with a parting blessing, he slowly faded into mist.

 

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National Geographic: A hot spot called Hell’s Café lured 19th-century Parisians to the city’s Montmartre neighborhood—like the Marais—on the Right Bank of the Seine. With plaster lost souls writhing on its walls and a bug-eyed devil’s head for a front door, le Café de l’Enfer may have been one of the world’s first theme restaurants.

 

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Manning Leonard Krull: Le Café de L’Enfer was a Hell-themed café in Paris’ red light district (aka Pigalle, the neighborhood of the Moulin Rouge), created in the late 19th century and operating up ’til sometime around the middle of the 20th. I first heard of this place years ago, before I ever lived in Paris. I had no idea that I’d one day end up living right down the street from where L’Enfer, which was located right on the Boulevard de Clichy, which was about fifty paces from the front door of my second apartment in Paris. Unfortunately, there’s very, very little solid information to be found regarding Le Café de L’Enfer. In all my searching, I’ve only been able to nail down the fact that it was definitely on the Boulevard de Clichy, somewhere near Place Blanche. I also haven’t had any luck trying to track down L’Enfer’s specific dates of operation, information about its design and construction, etc.

 

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The Long Forgotten Blog: The pub originally opened in Brussels in 1892 as the Cabaret de la Mort (i.e. the Cabaret of Death), but it soon moved to the Montmartre district of Paris, where it was renamed the Cabaret de l’Enfer. The Montmartre district was THE place to be if you were an artiste in the second half of the 19th c. It seems like all of the important Impressionist painters lived there or hung out there. In the 1890’s, it was bursting at the seams with cabarets and theaters, including fully-themed nightclubs. The Cabaret of Heaven and the Cabaret of Hell sat side by side. The waiters dressed as angels in the former and devils in the latter.

 

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i09.com: Once inside Cabaret de l’Enfer, the revelers witnessed a snake transform into a devil, were heckled by Satan, and were warned repeatedly of the scalding temperature. (To quote Morrow, “In spite of the half-molten condition of the rock-walls, the room was disagreeably chilly.”)

 

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William Chambers Morrow: We passed through a large, hideous, fanged, open mouth in an enormous face from which shone eyes of blazing crimson. Curiously enough, it adjoined heaven, whose cool blue lights contrasted strikingly with the fierce ruddiness of hell. Red-hot bars and gratings through which flaming coals gleamed appeared in the walls within the red mouth. A placard announced that should the temperature of this inferno make one thirsty, innumerable bocks might be had at sixty-five centimes each. A little red imp guarded the throat of the monster into whose mouth we had walked; he was cutting extraordinary capers, and made a great show of stirring the fires. The red imp opened the imitation heavy metal door for our passage to the interior, crying, “Ah, ah, ah! still they come! Oh, how they will roast!” Then he looked keenly at Mr. Thompkins. It was interesting to note how that gentleman was always singled out by these shrewd students of humanity. This particular one added with great gusto, as he narrowly studied Mr Thompkins, “Hist! ye infernal whelps; stir well the coals and heat red the prods, for this is where we take our revenge on earthly saintliness!”

“Enter and be damned, the Evil One awaits you!” growled a chorus of rough voices as we hesitated before the scene confronting us. Near us was suspended a caldron over a fire, and hopping within it were half a dozen devil musicians, male and female, playing a selection from “Faust” on stringed instruments, while red imps stood by, prodding with red-hot irons those who lagged in their performance.

Crevices in the walls of this room ran with streams of molten gold and silver, and here and there were caverns lit up by smouldering fires from which thick smoke issued, and vapors emitting the odors of a volcano. Flames would suddenly burst from clefts in the rocks, and thunder rolled through the caverns. Red imps were everywhere, darting about noiselessly, some carrying beverages for the thirsty lost souls, others stirring the fires or turning somersaults. Everything was in a high state of motion.

Numerous red tables stood against the fiery walls; at these sat the visitors. Mr. Thompkins seated himself at one of them. Instantly it became aglow with a mysterious light, which kept flaring up and disappearing in an erratic fashion; flames darted from the walls, fires crackled and roared. One of the imps came to take our order; it was for three coffees, black, with cognac; and this is how he shrieked the order: “Three seething bumpers of molten sins, with a dash of brimstone intensifier!” Then, when he had brought it, “This will season your intestines, and render them invulnerable, for a time at least, to the tortures of the melted iron that will be soon poured down your throats.” The glasses glowed with a phosphorescent light. “Three francs seventy-five, please, not counting me. Make it four francs. Thank you well. Remember that though hell is hot, there are cold drinks if you want them.”

Presently Satan himself strode into the cavern, gorgeous in his imperial robe of red, decked with blazing jewels, and brandishing a sword from which fire flashed. His black moustaches were waxed into sharp points, and turned rakishly upward above lips upon which a sneering grin appeared. Thus he leered at the new arrivals in his domain. His appearance lent new zest to the activity of the imps and musicians, and all cowered under his glance. Suddenly he burst into a shrieking laugh that gave one a creepy feeling. It rattled through the cavern with a startling effect as he strode up and down. It was a triumphant, cruel, merciless laugh. All at once he paused in front of a demure young Parisienne seated at a table with her escort, and, eying her keenly, broke into this speech: “Ah, you! Why do you tremble? How many men have you sent hither to damnation with those beautiful eyes, those rosy, tempting lips? Ah, for all that, you have found a sufficient hell on earth. But you,” he added, turning fiercely upon her escort, “you will have the finest, the most exquisite tortures that await the damned. For what? For being a fool. It is folly more than crime that hell punishes, for crime is a disease and folly a sin. You fool! For thus hanging upon the witching glance and oily words of a woman you have filled all hell with fuel for your roasting. You will suffer such tortures as only the fool invites, such tortures only as are adequate to punish folly. Prepare for the inconceivable, the unimaginable, the things that even the king of hell dare not mention lest the whole structure of damnation totter and crumble to dust.”

The man winced, and queer wrinkles came into the corners of his mouth. Then Satan happened to discover Mr. Thompkins, who shrank visibly under the scorching gaze. Satan made a low, mocking bow. “You do me great honor, sir,” he declared, unctuously. “You may have been expecting to avoid me, but reflect upon that you would have missed! We have many notables here, and you will have charming society. They do not include pickpockets and thieves, nor any others of the weak, stunted, crippled, and halting. You will find that most of your companions are distinguished gentlemen of learning and ability, who, knowing their duty, failed to perform it. You will be in excellent company, sir,” he concluded, with another low bow. Then, suddenly turning and sweeping the room with a gesture, he commanded, “To the hot room, all of you!” while he swung his sword, from which flashes of lightning trailed and thunder rumbled.

 

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i09.com: Even though Cabaret de l’Enfer isn’t open today, it stuck around a while — the photo above depicts a police man standing outside the cabaret in 1952.

 

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Paris Monster Kid Cabaret: This is the front and back cover of possibly a ticket booklet, postcard bocklet or program. It appears to be plaster work from the interior — note the serpents that spell out L’ENFER:

And the interior:

This is the flipside of a card I have (the obverse looks like the right-hand side (front cover) of the booklet above):

 

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Darren Nemeth: I have that postcard booklet. I think there are only 4 or 6 cards in it. Le Enfer specialized in fantasmagoria and ghost shows. Here is what the
old postcard booklet says inside:

“HELL” Montartre, Paris. The most unique cabaret in the world open every evening at 8:30.

Part I (ground floor): Visitiors purify their souls in Purgatory. Their suffering is greatly mitigated by up to date music, dancing and 1st class Refreshments. Discours by Lucifer and Satanas. No Extra charge is made for the entertaiment on the floor above.

Part II (1st floor): Satan introduces his diabolic spouse. Titania casts her into hell flames and her body is completely consumed in full view of all spectators. Any lady from the audience may make the experiment. Illustrations of the sufferings of the eternal damned and tableaux vivants of the deadly sins.

 

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Douban.com: Interestingly, a duplicate of the Cabaret de L’Enfer opened in New York in 1896, located near Broadway and 39th St., and it was popular when new, but I can find little information about this American version. Above is a surviving image of the American location’s facade.

 

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Tod Michel: Both L’Enfer and Cabaret du Ciel were demolished well before the Sixties. I was very often in this quarter of Paris, even in the mid-Fifties, and never saw these cafés. I only heard of them by my mother, who lived in Paris since the mid-Twenties. So I made some research and both were demolished in 1954. I missed them only by some months – alas – as in 1954/55 I started to go regularly in Paris (I was living in the suburb) to watch movies. The place where both L’Enfer et Cabaret du Ciel once existed is now a Monoprix supermarket.

On the opposite sidewalk, facing the place where L’Enfer and Le Ciel once existed, there was a movie theater called Le Colorado, and from the mid-1960s until recent years it specialized in horror movies only, with painted monsters and zombies on its façade – so in a sense it continued the tradition. Hundreds of horror movies played at this theater, from all periods and countries, like the 1931 Frankenstein, the Hammer movies, the Italian movies starring Barbara Steele, Mexican masked wrestlers, 1950s SF flicks, etc. From memory Le Colorado opened in 1964, but, before that date, it was a “normal” movie theater playing any kind of movies.

 

 

 

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p.s. Hey. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Almost everything is wrong with people at the moment, wouldn’t you say? Mm, I think I’d want the Lit Cigarette Vending Machine. And it would look so nice and perfect stationed next to my Camel Blue vending machine, thank you, love! Love explaining why pigeons’ heads jerk forwards and backwards when they walk and why that doesn’t give them headaches, G. ** jay, There are spiders that eat hummingbirds? How particular. Hm, I’m not driven to see Lanthimos’s films, I must admit. I kind of really didn’t like ‘The Lobster’ and ‘Sacred Deer’, and I kind of bailed after that. That said, I am strangely curious about the new one given that it’s so violently hated by some. Hm. ** Bill, I know, all problems solved via one machine, right? I’ve found the later Kim films kind of disappointing. I think the last one I liked in toto was ‘Stop’ maybe? ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi. Wow, I’m sort of surprised that women still wear perfume, but why wouldn’t they? 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