Cabaret de L'Enfer

[4] Situated at the foot of the hill of Montmartre, in the 18th arrondissement of Paris, The Cabaret de l'Enfer was a precursor to theme restaurants, whose ambience was its main attraction, and only occasionally hosted café singers.

[6][7] According to Jules Claretie, the spectacles offered by the Cabarets of Ciel and Enfer "did not differ in essence from the attractions seen at the fête de Neuilly...They used the same illusionist tricks produced by combinations of mirrors and the play of light.

In 1899, a visitor reported that, in the jargon used inside the café, an order of "three black coffees spiked with cognac" was relayed to the bar as: "Three seething bumpers of molten sins, with a dash of brimstone intensifier!".

[9] In their 1897 book, Montmartre, Renault and Château emphasize this critical difference: "if the Ciel and Enfer of the lovable M. Antonin merit a visit, this is not true of the Néant, which is frequented by hysterical and neurotic persons; M. Dorville is the founder and owner of this cabaret of Death where, by aid of mirrors, the customer is made to witness the decomposition of bodies, where the tables are coffins, the diners are the dead, the waiters are the undertakers, and so on and so forth".

[13] The lengthy spree of serial killer Guy Georges, whose multiple rapes, aggression with knives, tortures, and murders terrorized Parisians for seven years, ended in April 1998 when Captain Bernard Basdevant identified and neutralized the criminal at the spot where the Cabaret de l'Enfer once stood.