Between Heaven and Hell

Waiting on a time traveling machine…

I don’t spend too much time wishing I could revisit any past, but I am making an exception in this case.  At the turn of the 20th century on the Boulevard de Chilchy (near the Moulin Rouge), there was an incredible Cabaret called, L’Enfer (meaning “hell).  You would enter through the mouth of the devil, essentially selling your soul for a coffee or perhaps something more ‘sinister.’

The decor is like the wet dream of every metal child (i.e. me) who grew up in the 90’s and worked diligently after school on their drip  candle altar to piss their parents off.  In a kind of ‘Melty-Baroque’ style, the facade, ceilings, bar and stage all swirl with devils and demons that  Hieronymus Bosch or Matthias Grunewald would have been proud of.

The wait staff dressed as satan and had shows featuring ‘devilish attractions, torment of the damned, round of the damned, the boiler, metamorphoses of the damned.’  Next door was it’s sister Cabaret ‘Le Ciel’ (heaven), but being that this was the red light district of Paris, it was admittedly less popular than it’s sexier, rebellious brother.