Paris 1905. Caveau des Innocents is the underworld hub of urban Parisian nightlife. Its clients a volatile melange of licentiousness and corruption - ladies of the night, a magistrate and his mistress, gangsters ("les Apaches"), farmers, philosophers, free-living writers, a foreign prince and a young duke. The promise of erotic debauchery and elegant iniquity beckons...
Tabac, dark coffee, piquant cloves, rum soaked pears, candied citron, dark caramel, and star anise bathed in intoxicating swirls of opoponax, labdanum, hashish, benzoin resinoid, vanilla incense, and guaiac wood.
"And coming where the crossroads separate
And down each vista glories and wonders wait,
Crowning each path with pinnacles so fair
You know not which to choose, and hesitate --
Oh, go to Paris." - Alan Seeger
Art: L'irreparable - Les Fleurs du Mal by Jan Frans de Boever, 1921