In the 1890s the Moulin Rouge was the gayest dance hall in Paris. It had little Tunisian donkeys which bore cancan girls on their backs, an immense papier-mâché elephant which hid a troupe of dancers and an entire orchestra in its belly. It also had rough & ready Louise Weber (known for her lusty appetites as La Gouluethe glutton), who nightly exposed her shapely limbs and 60 yards of lace lingerie in hectic kicks and splits. To publicize her, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec did his first poster.
Last week Parisians were crowding into a small...
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