Inside the Moulin Rouge

Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society

History Hit

Society, History, Education, Sex, Scandal

4.8 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 10 April 2026

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Moulin Rouge opened its doors in 1889, at the height of the Belle Epoch - 'the Beautiful Age'.

Its famous windmill structure stood on the fringes of Paris, where intellectuals and artists mixed with thugs and criminals in a hedonistic neighbourhood.

What really went on inside the Moulin Rouge? Why was there a giant elephant in the garden? And did sex workers really solicit business while riding donkeys?!

Joining Kate today is the wonderful Mike Rapport, author of ‘City of Light, City of Shadows: Paris in the Belle Epoque’.

This episode was edited by Hannah Feodorov. The producer was Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Freddy Chick.

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All music from Epidemic Sounds.

Betwixt the Sheets: History of Sex, Scandal & Society is a History Hit podcast.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Do you want even more shocking and scandalous history?
0:03.2	Like why the ancient Greek statues had such small manhoods?
0:06.8	Or what went on behind closed doors in the Georgian era?
0:10.8	We'll sign up to History Hit,
0:12.5	where you can see me discover the scandalous side of history,
0:15.3	as well as hundreds of hours of original documentaries,
0:18.7	plus new releases every week, covering everything from prehistoric
0:22.8	Scotland to the Treaty of Versailles sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore
0:29.2	the past just visit history hit dot com forward slash subscribe hello my lovely betwixters it's me
0:37.3	kate lister you are back once again. Hurrah! I'm so pleased to see you. But before we can go any further, I do have to let you know, just in case you've forgotten everything that I've been telling you over the past three years. This is an adult podcast spoken by adults to other adults, but to adultery things, an adult you wake covering range of all subjects and you should should be an adult too. Right, can you tick all of that off? Can you? Can you? Because if you can't, you can't come in? I won't let you. Right, okay. Let's get on with it. Well, fancy seeing you, Hippittrixters. We are at the Moulin Rouge at the end of the 19th century,
1:11.9	and what a night! What a time to be alive! We are out in the back garden and we will acknowledge
1:17.5	the elephant in the room. No, literally, there is a massive elephant out in this garden and patrons
1:22.7	climb into it and, well, you'll have to keep listening if you want to know what they get up to
1:27.2	there. There is so much to see and do here. I'm not even sure you'll have to keep listening if you want to know what they get up to there
1:27.5	there is so much to see and do here i'm not even sure we'll have time for a donkey ride yes an actual
1:33.5	donkey ride it does feel a bit more blackpool than paris at the height of the bellapok but let's just
1:38.6	go with it but of course people don't just come here for the elephants and the donkeys they
1:43.4	come here for the dancers so should wekeys. They come here for the dancers.
1:45.1	So should we go inside and find out more about them?
2:15.9	I'm going to do. Hello and welcome back to Betwixteat Sheets, the history of sex scandal and society with me, Kate Lister.
2:21.0	Paris at the end of the 19th century was the place to be, make no mistake.
2:24.8	They didn't call it the Bella Pock the beautiful age for nothing.
	...

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