An interesting article I stumbled across while browsing
Pinterest the other day. I know it's YEARS old at this point, but there is some great stuff in here.
I visited Paris briefly a couple years ago and there are parts of it that really do look like storybook Paris. Of course, parts of it are dirty, and parts of it had too many tourists, but come on. My wife and I wandered around until we found a shop that sold ONLY absinthe. (We also found a French game shop. I bought some French Innistrad booster packs, as I recall.)
In modern times, you can find a stray cabaret or goth club in most modern metropolitan areas. But back in the late 19th century, your options were limited, albeit merrily deranged.
Paris of the 1890s had several supernatural nightlife options, each of them with marvelously outlandish gimmicks. In the 1899 book Bohemian Paris of To-Day by William Chambers Morrow and Édouard Cucuel, the authors visit several of the City of Lights darker drinking destinations, such as the Cabaret du Néant ("The Cabaret of Nothingness") in the neighborhood of Montmartre.
The awesomely insane Heaven and Hell nightclubs of 1890s Paris
