Cabaret de L'Enfer

Cabaret de l'Enfer (The Cabaret of Hell) was a famous cabaret in Montmartre, founded in November 1892 by Antonin Alexander and demolished in 1950 to allow for the expansion of a Monoprix supermarket. The Cabaret de L'Enfer was the counterpart to The Cabaret du Ciel (The Cabaret of Heavens), another cabaret which shared the same address on the Boulevard de Clichy. Antonin Alexander was the creator, director, and host of the twin ventures. Jules Claretie, who wrote that future historians of the mores of the Belle Epoque "could not silently pass by these cabarets", described them as "putting Dante's poem within walking distance". For Georges Renault and Henri Château, "Le Ciel and L'Enfer, gaping wide-open all in a row" was worthy of the label "spectacular". The flâneurs of Paris entered through the monumental jaws of Leviathan, devourer of the damned. The intimidating façade was "a stucco ode to female nudity being devoured by infernal flames".