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Foreign hello and welcome to My Victorian Nightmare. I'm your host, Genevieve Mannion, and I'm here to talk about mysterious deaths, morbid fascinations, disturbing stories, and otherwise spooky events from the Victorian era. Because to me, there's just something especially intriguing, creepy and oddly comforting about horror and mayhem from the 19th century. So listener discretion is advised. Hello friends, and welcome to this, my 30th episode. Before we get to anything else, they got Jack the Ripper. I'm recording this on Friday the 14th. Happy Valentine's Day, everybody. And a listener sent the news to me this morning that they caught Jack the ripper. Aaron Kosminski, 100% DNA match. Thanks to historian Russell Edwards and a descendant of Kosminski's who offered her DNA, they pulled a 100% match off the bloody shawl that belonged to Catherine Eddowes. I have honestly been avoiding doing a Jack the Ripper episode because frankly, I hate cold cases. I hate hearing about them. Few things make me more sad. So I never really had a great interest in the Ripper case because I thought, like most people, he could never be found. But they found him. And between now and next Monday, I will be doing little else than constructing the most thorough episode that I can on the Ripper for the following week. So this is really heavy for me for some reason. I know we have a Leo full moon and I do have pms, but I am finding it really hard to hold it together about this. I can't stop thinking about those women. I say I haven't dug deep into the Ripper case, but I still know like a good deal about it. Just not as much as like other topics that I like to obsess over. But I cannot stop seeing those women in my mind. All of those horrible photos in the illustrations in the police news. If you live close to where any of them are buried in the City of London Cemetery, Mary Nichols and Catherine Eddowes are there, Annie Chapman is in the Manor Park Cemetery, Mary Kelly is in St. Patrick's Cemetery, and Elizabeth Stride is in East London Cemetery. If you live close to any of these places, will you bring a flower for me? They got em ladies. Catherine, you got him. Forensic scientists to me are real world superheroes. They literally catch monsters. Thank you Russell Edwards. You are a superhero. Okay, more on all of this next week if I survive. Because I have no doubt I will barely be sleeping until then. Okay, for now we are gonna put that in a bubble and let it fly away for now so I can focus on today's episode, which is simply horrible and fascinating and spooky and grisly and a little bit sexy. Or at least it is to me. But that's because I find things like chandeliers made of skeletons sexy. Perhaps you feel the same. On today's episode I will be discussing the very macabre ways in which French Victorians would entertain themselves. I will be discussing the death themed cabarets, the horror shows in old gothic chapels, and the very upsetting and morbid curiosities that Parisians would literally trample over each other to get a glimpse of. But first, I'm going to weave some haunted housekeeping into something simply delightful. I need to read for you an email that I got from a listener that brings me so much joy. It's getting to the point where I can't respond to every email, which I am so sorry for, but this one really stuck out to me. I love that my listenership is so diverse in age. Most of my listeners are in the 28 to 44 group. I've got a couple in the 2327 group too, a couple of Gen Z goths. But I also have a considerable number in the 45 to 60 plus category Spooky Boomers. And I want to share this email that I got from a lady named Barbara who describes herself as such. This is what she writes. I'm a very old lady who loves your podcast and I will tell you why it fills me with nostalgia. Because when I was a child, most of my relatives were born before 1900. I grew up in a gabled house with coffins in the parlor, braided hair, flowers under glass domes, and beautiful photographs of dead people. My great aunts all wore cameos, garnets and jet jewelry in mourning for who knows who. They spoke of the Civil War, referred to as the recent unpleasantness, as if it were current. We picnicked in the dang cemetery. Many Victorian customs, as you've described, lasted at least until the 50s because they were just what our family did, how we lived. Your recounting these customs and way of thinking makes me smile sometimes laugh sometimes fill me with useless longing. I nod a lot with recognition. Thank you so much for all of that. As I approach my own inevitable death and she comes as a friend. Your podcast brings me comfort in that way too. Thank you for that as well. I never miss an episode. End quote. Here's to you, Barbara. My heart. Thank you for that. I promise I will not be crying through this whole episode. I am just. I am just so overwhelmed with the ways that this show has connected me to such fascinating and beautiful people. What a special community that you are. And although I may not be able to respond to every email, hopefully I will have an assistant in the near future. You can always email me@myvictorianightmaremail.com you can send messages through Instagram yvictoriannightmare. I'm still getting used to Blue Sky. I never used Twitter, so the interface is a little foreign to me, but you can find me there as well. You can go to myvictoriannightmare.com to find my Patreon, where you can receive the show ad free. And sadly, but not so sadly, I will be winding down my other podcast, Dark Poetry, because I have some very exciting things happening with this show and I'm going to need to focus all of my energy here. I think I may still leave those episodes there for like, posterity though, and perhaps even from time to time I will include them as minisodes here. But I will have to see. I'm as you know, an insane person and I've never been able to do just one thing. I've got too many ants in my pants. But I'm going to force myself to focus on this here podcast and only this here podcast because, and I don't want to jinx anything, but it's quickly becoming my career. I am truly overwhelmed with how you have helped me grow and continue to help me grow by rating the podcast on Apple Podcasts and on Spotify, you're making my sweetest dreams and most exciting nightmares come true. A lot is happening and I'm gonna puke. It's also exciting so Anyway, as I was saying, today's episode is all about spooky French Victorian entertainment and I must apologize in advance for butchering the language. I promise I will do my very best, but my French is limited to the aliases that I use to refer to my little Pomeranian, Toby, who is otherw known as simply Monsieur, sometimes Mon petit, although in more aristocratic company he is referred to as Le Chevalier du Choux a la creme, Sir Cream puff, as it were. So please forgive me and I found something special that I want to share with you real quick before we get to the meat of the episode, the bouff, so to speak. It's a tiny little article that I found from the Illustrated Police News that is French entertainment themed, it is precious and it is called A Drunken Oyster at a Masquerade Ball and it reads, at a recent masked ball in Paris there was seen moving around an enormous oyster with two gaiters at the bottom and a domino covered with seaweed at the top. Behind this oyster moved an enormous gendarme, booted and with an immense three cornered hat who was trying to open the oyster with his saber. Occasionally he succeeded and there could be seen a woman in flesh coloured webbing and with nothing else on but a pearl collar and who hurriedly shut her shell with a scared look. The oyster made a great hit which she moistened with too much champagne so that on leaving the opera she found it necessary to come out of her shell and began a wild dance which the police found trifling. Finally, this pearl oyster went to sleep at the police station, which I doubt that last part and perhaps the entire article, but certainly that last part. And you are about to find out why. In short, the Victorian French didn't clutch the pearls quite so easily as the English or Americans. Okay? And this is important, if you find yourself to be a bit squeamish, you got the squeams. The first half of the episode might be a bit intense, but don't worry, if you're here for more intriguing dark and spookies than say, corpsey creepy eepies, you will find that in the later half of the show. But no matter what you are here for, you're still going to learn a lot of really fascinating information that you cannot tell any of your co workers or anyone at parties. Sadly, they won't get it. I promise. No matter how neat and fun. Some of the terrible things that I am going to tell you today are just take my advice. Your co workers, your friends and especially your family will not want to hear any of this. Unless you have other creeps in your life like I am lucky enough to have. My friend Kabir is going to get an earful of Victorian murder theater facts the next time I see him, but he's just about the only person I can tell these things to. And Chrissy, She's a monster. I can't get over how much I love my friends. Okay, let's begin. My main references for today are a long forgotten hauntedmansion blogspot article amazing, a daily.jstor.org article by Amelius Soth, and an Atlas Obscura article by Michael Waters. All of my other references can be found in the show Notes by the end of the 19th century in France, which form of entertainment do you believe was one of the very most popular? Was it the many circuses of Paris, the art exhibitions, cabarets, or the Folies Bergres that was the Parisian music hall noted for its lavish spectacles and risque performances? It was actually none of the above. The answer is the morgue French people found disturbing the bloomers off themselves down the local morgue to be one of the very most enthralling forms of entertainment in not just Paris, but all over the country. Morgues were open to the public for the purpose that friends and loved ones could come to see or identify bodies. But few visitors ever came for this purpose, and in fact the layout of the Paris morgue was very much intended as an exhibition. Bodies weren't discreetly covered with sheets or kept out of view to preserve their dignity. Bodies were laid out on slabs behind glass in two rows in the style of like a natural history museum of cadavers for folks to walk through and gawk at. Their clothes were hung on hooks above them. They lay naked side by side. Although many morgues were popular attractions, none rivaled the Paris morgue when it was rebuilt in 1864. City planners designed it as an attraction not for the purpose of entertainment, but for the ease of crowds to come and hopefully more quickly identify the dead. It was centrally placed right behind the Cathedral of Notre Dame and open from early morning to dusk seven days a week. It was designed to be inviting. The exhibition room could hold 50 people at a time. There were large green curtains that hung in the corners, likely dyed with arsenic at the time, which really ties the whole scene together for me. I saw a quote comparing the space to a department store window showing off its most prized merchandise. In earlier years, cold water would drip from the ceiling to slow decomposition of the bodies, but in 1880 a refrigeration system was Instituted to keep the bodies from decomposing more rapidly. Which answers a question that I had in the very first episode. I couldn't find exactly when refrigeration was officially beginning to be used in morgues to help slow decomposition. I am learning so much fascinating and revolting information that I can never share in most places or I will be asking to leave. Thank God I can tell you guys and Kabir and Chrissy these God awful things, okay? The displays of corpses were often compared to the theater. French novelist Emily Zola called it a show that was affordable to all. From time to time, there would be no bodies on display and crowds would react angrily. Like when the lion at the zoo hides behind a bush behind the glass. The novelist said that when no bodies were on display, the crowds complained that death allowed itself an intermission that day without thinking of their good pleasure. But the morgue was more than just a theater of death. Spectators could also enjoy, like a twisted episode of Law and Order. Police would often drag suspected killers by the scruff of their necks down to view their victims in hopes of shocking them into giving confessions. This was done so commonly that special electric lights were installed to brightly illuminate the bodies before the suspects so that they would see more clearly what they were believed to have done and confess. And there are a number of instances where this tactic worked. Some police records show that a number of people confessed upon being forced to visit victims in the morgue. This also served as a no doubt very dramatic and almost theatrical spectacle for the people lucky enough to catch one of these confrontations while they were there. Which is a horrifying thing to think about. People simply suspected of being killers being dragged into a public exhibition of brightly lit murder victims while onlookers no doubt shouted and demanded a confession while they're being brought face to face with murder victims that they may have never even seen before. Can you imagine this? That is just inconceivable to imagine. Although I kind of want to see it as a scene in a horror movie. Just saying. Apart from these dramatically shocking and gruesome encounters between murder suspects and their suspected victims, there was more macabre drama literally staged for onlookers to enjoy. Sensationalist grotesque yellow journalism wasn't just for Brits and Americans. The French loved their blood soaked tabloids too. And often victims of hideous murders, decapitated, unknown bodies found floating in the Seine river, or even evidence found at the scenes of crimes. Bloodied knives or trunks where bodies were found would quickly be put on display in the morgue awaiting the thousands of people who would pack into the exhibition hall to catch a glimpse for themselves. A USC history professor, Vanessa R. Schwartz, notes an example that in 1895, a French daily newspaper reported that the dead body of an 18 month old child had been pulled out of the river, and the very next day another 3 year old child was found nearby. The paper, capitalizing on this horrifying tragedy, ran an article asking, are these two sisters stirring up speculation and excitement, encouraging the crowds to go see for themselves, creating a story that they can inevitably revisit in future editions that many thousands of people who rushed to the morgue to see for themselves would be desperate to read. So many people rushed to see these two little girls on display at the morgue that the police were dispatched to disperse the crowds. In the newspaper Les Journales Irresistree, which again, I apologize for my French, there was a story about a four year old little girl that had been found dead with only a small bruise on her hand. Readers of the paper rushed to the morgue to try to identify her or solve the mystery themselves. They pushed through the exhibition hall to see the corpse of this little girl, who was at least clothed in a tiny dress. She was posed in a chair that was covered in a red cloth to bring out her paleness. After this one report, 50,000 innocent people were said to have stormed the morgue to see her. After a few more papers ran the story of the unidentified girl, crowds at the morgue grew so massive that they spilled out into the streets. Vendors gathered outside to hawk coconut, gingerbread and toys. Traffic stopped, fights broke out, and another newspaper described all of this disorder as such. The mob rushes the doors with savage cries. Fallen hats are tromped on, parasols and umbrellas are broken. And yesterday women fell sick, having been half suffocated. Over 150,000 people were estimated to have filed past the body each night. She would remain strapped to that red chair and would be placed in a refrigerator to preserve her as long as possible. After a few days, though, she began to decompose visibly, so an autopsy was finally done. It was determined that she had died after swallowing an earthworm. Crowds that had gathered online that day were furious when she was removed from her display for the autopsy before they could get a glimpse. It's unclear if the little girl was ever identified.
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So how now, brown cow? Does a Parisian who has spent the entire afternoon wafting about the morgue spend their evening? They may be interested in visiting a theater like the Grand Guignol, where they could watch five or six short plays that feature distinctly bleak worldviews, gory special effects, tales of insanity, hypnosis or panic. They could see plays about people who were not considered appropriate for more respectable theaters like sex workers, criminals, roustabouts, etc. To add a little comic relief, some comedies would be interspersed between the phony Blood and Guts. Does this sound familiar to something you may have seen in a very homoerotic film about vampires? In the movie Interview with a Vampire, Louis Brad Pitt brings young Claudia, masterfully played by Kirsten Dunst, to a show in Paris to a theater called Theatre des Vampires, the Theater of the Vampires, where they see a very disturbing little play about two lovers who get their heads chopped off by Christopher Waltz, as well as an erotic murder show where a defense restless young woman is hypnotized and bitten by Antonio Banderas. It's all very disturbing and horny, and although this was not a real historical establishment, it was certainly inspired by the equally disturbing and horny Grand Guignol. The theater at its founding in 1897 was very small, the smallest in fact in Paris, with only 293seats. It was previously a chapel and much of the architecture was kept. The seats were set in boxes that were originally built for nuns to watch the chapel service. These looked like confessionals and sculptured angels hung over the orchestra. The gothic structures of the theater design exuded an eeriness and inspired themes of blackness and death. The environment was an experience in and of itself, itself, much like the immersive theater of Like Sleep no More. It wasn't just about the shows, it was an experience to just simply be there. But as I mentioned, it was also a very sexualized environment and attendees would often go expecting to be aroused by the shows. Theatergoers could rent special private boxes to watch the shows in, and it is said that some theatergoers would get so sexually boisterous in these boxes that performers would often have to break character and yell at them to keep it down. Conversely, apart from the theatergoers who came there to get turned on by the horror shows, there were Those who would just puke or faint. The marketing for this theater reminds me of the marketing that was done for the original Exorcist movie. They played up the fact that the show was so hard, horrifying, you would probably faint or run out screaming. They added that a doctor would be present for those who required medical attention after, say, pulling their own heads off in fear. The promoters of the Exorcist, by the way, ran trailers of nothing but the audience's reaction to the film. Like people screaming and fainting and running out of the theater. They play that footage on nightly news reports about the reactions people were having. It was brilliant marketing. Incidentally, quick side note, did you know that the original trailer for the Exorcist was banned because it literally killed people? It has a sequence of really awesome looking, flashing shots of demon faces and the girl being exorcised. And it's a full minute long of just very intense flashing that caused a number of people to have fatal seizures. Okay, back to the Victorian murder shows. Max Mori, who served as director between 1898 and 1914 at the Grand Guignol, judged the show's success by the level of distress the horror shows caused. He was proud that they had an average of at least two faintings each evening. Maury hired Andre Delorde to be the main playwright for the theater. He wrote at least 100 plays with titles such as the Old the Ultimate Torture and A Crime in the Madhouse. As mentioned, insanity was a common topic, and he collaborated with experimental psychologist Alfred Binet to create tales of madness and self destruction. In one play called Les Laboratoire de Hallucia. Hallucination, the laboratory of hallucinations. A doctor finds his wife's lover in his operating room and he performs graphic brain surgery on him, rendering him an insane zombie. Then that guy hammers a chisel into the doctor's brain. Awesome. Okay, I'm sorry, I gotta tell you some summaries of just a few more of these terrible plays. In another one, there are two old women in an insane asylum that use scissors to blind a pretty young patient because they're jealous. In another one, a nanny strangles the children in her care, and a man takes revenge on a woman who disfigures his face with acid. Okay, that's all. The theater peaked between World War I and World War II, becoming a place to see and be seen by celebrities of the time. But after the wars, audiences began to diminish. The management attributed this decline to the horrors of the real world, like the revelation of The Holocaust. Its final director, Charles Nunan, said, before the war, everyone felt that what was happening on stage was impossible. Now we know that these things, and worse are possible in reality, but I don't know if that's particularly true. As discussed, folks used to meet up in the local morgue to peruse the corpses the way kids used to meet up at the mall. The Victorians lived with wall to wall horror every single day of their lives. Whether it be the never ending epidemics, extreme poverty, the endless fires, train disasters, they lived with horror. Accepting death as a way of life definitely though began to fall out of fashion after World War II. And although maybe he was right that the wars traumatized a generation in such a way that they felt ignoring death was a more comfortable way of dealing with death than embracing it. But I do wonder specifically why that shift really happened. Like people never stopped being interested in the macabre, as you well know. You're listening to me right now talk about it. But I wonder if it was more about a desire to preserve the dignity of the dead. Like a shift in consciousness post World War II, that maybe putting dead bodies on display for thousands of people to see wasn't like cool anymore. And say, having sex in a box that nuns used to sit in while a woman gets her head theatrically cut off on stage wasn't, say, super cool. Now that an entire generation became direct witnesses to the intended evisceration of humanity as they knew it and were forced to do everything they could do to stop it. I don't know, I'm spitballing here. Getting a bit off track. Food for thought. Let me know what your thoughts are on why the fetishization of death fell out of fashion in the 1940s and 50s in the comments. Okay, let's talk about the more stylish, fun and far less bloody and far more spooky aspects of the death centered entertainment in Victorian Paris. Let's talk about the cabarets of death, a subject that I find rather sexy. And I think this is because while recent researching these establishments, it just brought back old memories of the goth clubs of yore that I loved. I would spend like three hours getting ready with my friends to go out and we looked so beautiful. My favorite club was a place called the bank on Houston street in New York. The goths said that it used to be an old blood bank, but no it wasn't. It was just an old bank that was turned into a club. There is some very damning footage out there of baby Goth Genevieve in the basement of that place introducing some public access show segment in like black satin nightgown held together with safety pins with a corset over it. The show was called Vampires and I would kill to find that. If anyone has access to old public access TV shows that ran in the 90s in New York, please do some digging. But let's talk about the goth clubs of the Victorian era. These clubs of death, specifically the Cabaret du Neyon, meaning the Cabaret of nothingness, obliteration or death. As well as the Cabaret du Ciel and the Cabaret des l'infert, the Cabarets of Heaven and Hell. These were very theatrical death themed nightclubs with very dramatic exteriors and interior gothic designs, carefully executed lighting that painted guests with deathly green and blue pallors or red hellish fiery blazes. These three clubs were in close proximity to each other and the cabarets of Heaven and Hell were directly next to each other in the Montmartre district. This district was home to some of the most famous impressionist painters of the Monet, Degas, Renoir, Van Van Gogh to Louz Retrec, all lived in this area in the later 1800s. So it was a very eccentric and hip part of town. The Cabaret du Neant originally opened in Brussels in 1892 as the cabaret du Morte, more clearly named the Cabaret of Death. But it soon moved to the Montmartre district of Paris with a new name and fairly sophisticated gothic extension. Exterior all black with white trim. The title of the cabaret written in a lovely Victorian font above the door. It had two large iron torch like lamps that threw a yellow green light on passersby. This kind of light makes you look particularly corpse like. So that's a fun touch. And if you would follow me, I've reserved a table for us both. Ah, bon soir, Henri. Bonsoir, Rem. Pierci. Merci. Right this way. Our unsmiling, though very charming doorman, Henri, is dressed as a pallbearer, as are all the waiters inside. They do not smile. They hold a somber and serious expression. We are being led through a short dark lamplit corridor, through two black velvet curtains into the main room lit only with candles. Hung above us is a chandelier constructed of real human bones with thin white candles. The walls are decorated with skulls lit from the inside like lamps. Ah, this is our table right here. Have a seat which is shaped like a coffin. And we are surrounded by posters on the walls of macabre slogans like Life is a folly that death corrects and paintings of battle scenes and Guillotines and what looks like a car with a demon driving it. Again, another nice touch. In a few moments, our MC will welcome us to the kingdom of death and address us as mortals weary wanderers. Coffin worms or Maccabees, which was a slang for. For corpses found floating in the Seine river. Ah, Cognac, Henri. Merci. He said name your poison. I hope you don't mind cognac. Although I can ask for the drink menu. The cocktails here are all named after diseases, which is fun, implying that there's like cholera in the martini. Once all of the guests find their ways to their coffin seats, the MC in clerical garb will emerge. He will welcome us and give a speech about the horrors of death and all the agonizing torture and gnashing of teeth that awaits us in the afterlife, etc. But don't worry, it's not going to be like a long, boring, depressing, drawn out speech. After a few minutes of being told that we're going to hell, he's going to point at one of the number of paintings on the wall of bloody battle scenes. And it's really cool, the painting. Everything will begin to glow and then change. All of the soldiers will then appear to be skeletons. The same will happen with that rad painting of the guillotine cutting someone's head off over there. It will illuminate and then fade to where now all of the figures in the painting are skeletons. Same with a painting of a ball where all the dancing people glow and transition to bones. Basically, the paint paintings are done on layers of glass. The full painting on one, the skeleton painting on the other. And depending on how the light hits it, whether from the back or front, it reveals the different layers. It's a really cool illusion. Oh, our drinks. Chin, chin. After this, we can follow that man over there in the black monk robes to another room covered in photos of cholera patients. More bones, wounds and skulls. And. Oh my. Oh my God. Are you okay? A guy just fell down and took his whole drink with him. Okay, I think he is okay. The. The MC just said, finish your beautiful drink before you kill yourself. Look how sad you've made Pierre. He just pointed over the bartender. He does look very sad. As I was saying, we will be led to another room full of bones and skulls, where it will be announced that we have arranged arrived at the gates of death. Inside there is a coffin. And through tricks of mirrors, it looks like it's you laying in the coffin. As you walk up closer, the room is lit with that Same kind of like ghastly green yellow light that makes you look like a dead body, which is so cool. There's another upright coffin with a pretty lady in it that will also transition into a rotting corpse and then nothing but skeleton bones. It does this in a similar way that the painting effects were done. There is another room where more spooky like magic shows are performed, but they ask guests to volunteer and it's a very small room. And there's nothing more uncomfortable to me than being pressured to be part of a magic show. So I don't want to go in there. That's like a living nightmare to me. So before we make our way to the coffin rooms, let's finish our drinks and I will tell you more about the clubs across the street. The Cabarets of Heaven and Hell. We'll begin with the Cabaret of Hell. The exterior must be seen. I put a picture on the Instagram and blue sky. I actually put a bunch of photos in today's episode post that you must see. The door is a huge sculpture of a satanic face with vampire teeth and a gaping mouth. So surrounded by sculptures of naked men and women being tortured by demons in Hell. It is marvelous. It's like a Disneyland fever dream. Similar to the Cabaret of Nothingness, the club's entertainment included illusionist tricks and similar kinds of performances, although they were more hell themed. The doorman was dressed as the devil and the waiters and waitresses were also dressed as demons. The music was sinister organ music, but it had more of a jovial and silly atmosphere than the Cabaret du Neyon. Not so morbid and somber as cheeky and sinister. The Cabaret du Ciel, right next door was a very different experience. The Cabaret of Heaven was less goth, but still death centered. Its theme was more ethereal paradise. The entrance was painted in white and blue and covered with sculptured angels. Once inside, you'd hear harp music and be entertained by plays about the joys of the afterlife. Similar to the cabaret across the street, the MC is also dressed as a priest, but not like a demon priest telling you you're going to hell. Instead, he introduces performances of nearly naked lady angels and nymphs dancing and playing music. St. Peter might sprinkle you with holy water or you may be treated to a scene from Dante's Inferno. There was also a giant golden pig surrounded by candles that patrons were encouraged to bow before and cross themselves in front of which. I don't recall that particular kind of symbolism in Dante's Inferno or the Bible, but I love all of this. These people really knew how to have a good time. Despite the heavenly atmosphere, it was still described by a British soldier stationed in Paris in such a way, quote, the whole place reeked of something sinister and the general effect was the very essence of tawdri ness. End quote. Sounds kind of like a prude to me, but considering how much French Victorians were entertained by the unsettling and macabre, I'm sure even their most heavenly entertainment was served with a side of spookiness. If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to hear more, please Rate Review Subscribe Leave me comments on Apple Podcasts and Spotify because I love them so much. Be kind to yourselves and I will see you in your nightmares.
Episode Summary: My Victorian Nightmare - Ep. 30: "Welcome to the Cabaret of Death"
Introduction
In Episode 30 of My Victorian Nightmare, host Genevieve Mannion delves into the macabre and fascinating world of French Victorian entertainment. Titled "Welcome to the Cabaret of Death," this episode explores the eerie allure the Victorian era held for death-themed amusements, including public morgues, the infamous Grand Guignol theater, and death-centric cabarets. Mannion intertwines historical insights with personal reflections, creating an engaging narrative that captivates both history enthusiasts and fans of the macabre.
Listener Connection and Personal Reflections
Before diving into the main content, Genevieve shares a heartfelt email from a listener named Barbara. Barbara, identifying as a "Spooky Boomer," reminisces about Victorian customs that resonate with her family's history, such as "coffins in the parlor" and "beautiful photographs of dead people." She expresses how the podcast provides her with comfort as she approaches her own mortality:
"Your recounting these customs and way of thinking makes me smile sometimes laugh sometimes fill me with useless longing... Your podcast brings me comfort in that way too." [02:10]
Genevieve expresses deep gratitude for her listeners' diverse backgrounds and the strong community they've built, highlighting the personal connections forged through shared interests in the Victorian macabre.
The Morgue as Public Entertainment
Mannion begins by uncovering a lesser-known aspect of Victorian French entertainment: the public morgues. Contrary to modern sensibilities, morgues in 19th-century Paris were designed as public exhibitions where citizens could view corpses much like exhibits in a natural history museum. Genevieve explains:
"Bodies were laid out on slabs behind glass in two rows... Their clothes were hung on hooks above them. They lay naked side by side." [05:15]
The Paris morgue, rebuilt in 1864, became a central attraction behind Notre Dame Cathedral, accommodating up to 50 visitors at a time. It wasn't merely a place for identification; it was a spectacle. Mannion highlights how morgues served multiple purposes:
"Police would often drag suspected killers by the scruff of their necks down to view their victims in hopes of shocking them into giving confessions." [09:45]
"After a few days, though, she began to decompose visibly, so an autopsy was finally done. Crowds that had gathered online that day were furious when she was removed from her display for the autopsy before they could get a glimpse." [19:30]
Grand Guignol Theater: The Pinnacle of Victorian Horror
Transitioning from morgues, Genevieve explores the Grand Guignol theater, a cornerstone of Parisian horror entertainment. Established in 1897, Grand Guignol specialized in horror shows with graphic special effects and unsettling narratives. Mannion describes the theater's ambiance and programming:
"The gothic structures of the theater design exuded an eeriness and inspired themes of blackness and death." [14:20]
Key points about Grand Guignol include:
Playwrights and Content: Under director Max Mori and playwright Andre Delorde, over 100 horror plays were produced, often collaborating with experimental psychologists like Alfred Binet to craft tales of madness and self-destruction.
Examples include:
Audience Reactions: Success was measured by the distress elicited from the audience, with an average of two faintings per evening being a typical metric:
"Max Mori... judged the show's success by the level of distress the horror shows caused." [16:50]
Decline Post-War: The theater's popularity waned after World Wars I and II, as real-world horrors overshadowed the theatrical portrayals:
"Audiences began to diminish. The management attributed this decline to the horrors of the real world, like the revelation of The Holocaust." [19:00]
Genevieve muses on why the fetishization of death declined post-World War II, suggesting a societal shift toward preserving the dignity of the dead and a collective trauma that made embracing death uncomfortable.
Death-Centric Cabarets: The Cabaret of Death
The episode's highlight is the exploration of Victorian Parisian cabarets dedicated to death-themed entertainment. Genevieve vividly describes three prominent establishments:
Cabaret du Neant (Cabaret of Nothingness):
Cabaret du Ciel (Cabaret of Heaven):
Theme: While still death-centered, it presented an ethereal, paradisiacal atmosphere with white and blue decor, angel sculptures, and harp music.
Performances: Offered plays about the joys of the afterlife, featuring nearly naked angels and nymphs, blending sensuality with the supernatural.
Ambiance: Despite its heavenly theme, observations from visitors noted an underlying sinister vibe:
"The whole place reeked of something sinister and the general effect was the very essence of tawdri ness." [21:10]
Cabaret du Ciel (Cabaret of Hell):
Genevieve draws parallels between these historical establishments and modern pop culture, referencing the film Interview with a Vampire and comparing the immersive experiences to contemporary immersive theater like Sleep No More.
Shift in Societal Perception of Death
Genevieve ponders the societal transition from embracing death as a form of entertainment to a more reserved and dignified approach post-World War II. She speculates that:
She invites listeners to share their thoughts on this shift, fostering engagement and reflection on how cultural perceptions evolve.
Conclusion
In this richly detailed episode, Genevieve Mannion masterfully unpacks the darkly intriguing facets of Victorian French entertainment. From the public fascination with morgues to the theatrical horrors of Grand Guignol and the immersive experiences of death-centric cabarets, the episode paints a comprehensive picture of an era deeply entwined with death and the macabre. Through historical anecdotes, personal reflections, and engaging storytelling, Genevieve offers listeners a profound understanding of why the Victorian era continues to fascinate those who find comfort in its heebie-jeebies.
Notable Quotes
Further Engagement
Genevieve encourages listeners to share their thoughts and engage through various platforms:
Listeners are also invited to rate, review, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify to support the podcast's growth.
Upcoming Content
Due to recent developments in the Jack the Ripper case, Genevieve announces an upcoming detailed episode on Aaron Kosminski, whom some believe to be the elusive Ripper. She expresses her emotional connection to the case and previews the depth of research that will be featured in the next episode.
Stay tuned for more unsettling and captivating tales from the Victorian era in upcoming episodes of My Victorian Nightmare.