The Dark Side of Spectacle

Not all of Paris's stages showed pleasant dramas. The city's role as world capital attracted those fleeing poverty, persecution, and provincial limitations. Many found only different forms of misery. The "Apache" gangs—young men from the urban underclass—created their own violent spectacles that terrified bourgeois Paris.

Prostitution, though regulated, remained visible. The maisons de tolérance (licensed brothels) ranged from squalid to luxurious. The most exclusive, like the Chabanais, decorated rooms in exotic themes—Japanese, Moorish, Louis XV. Edward VII of England maintained a private room with a custom-built love seat accommodating his girth and preferences. But most sex workers labored in misery, aged quickly, died young.

The city's spectacle depended on invisible labor. The men who lit the gas lamps (later electric lights) worked through the night. The women who cleaned the grand apartments rose before dawn. The seamstresses who created haute couture gowns bent over needles in airless workshops. Stable boys who tended the carriages of theatergoers slept with the horses. Paris's performance required a vast backstage crew who rarely appeared in the spotlight.