Photo by F. Berkeley Smith
INTERIOR OF THE CABARET OF THE ASSASSINS
The rue Tholozé, snaking its way up from the rue Lepic to the ball of the Moulin de la Galette, is purely a hill street. Its gutters are flushed with clear water which flows in miniature torrents. Horses never climb the rue Tholozé, and pedestrians going up to the ball pause at the landing stages for breath. Those living along this mountain highway must needs step out of their residences with their sea legs on, for the declivity which slopes past their doorways resembles somewhat the angle of a promenade deck in a gale. The hill begins to ascend in earnest after you pass the dingy little bohemian restaurant of the Vache Enragée on the rue Lepic, an intime rendezvous of bohemians of the Butte.
With the renovation and reorganization of the “Moulin de la Galette” the famous ball held for so many generations in the granary under the ancient windmill took a change for the better.
Prior to this the ball bore an unsavory reputation. It was the scene of continual fights and the rendezvous for every villainous rapin of Montmartre and their equally vicious female companions, the gigolettes and mômes of the Butte.
Photo by F. Berkeley Smith
EARLY MORNING—THE MOULIN DE LA GALETTE
To-day the spacious ballroom is remodeled and redecorated with green lattice and crystal chandeliers in the style of the ballroom of the old fête champêtre. The orchestra is the best of its kind in Paris. The floor is kept in perfect condition and all Montmartre goes to the “Galette” to dance and be merry. Models, grisettes, cocottes, shop-girls, students and clerks, painters and musicians, sculptors and poets, meet and mingle. While its clientèle is drawn from all Paris, the majority of it is Montmartrois.