Imagine the scene – for your computer services company, you’ve just bought a space you can convert for use as an office and for storage in the centre of Paris. It’s wall-to-wall shelves and has been used to stock goods for years, but when you start stripping back the casing you find… the most amazing art deco mosaics from a 1920s brothel!

This is basically how the new owners of Aux Belles Poules found themselves with a magnificently preserved piece of Parisian history, including racy scenes rendered in mosaic and coloured tiles, that had been completely forgotten. It’s a wild tale about something that is not registered as a protected historic monument.

Let us tell and show you more…

The story behind the rediscovery of Aux Belles Poules is quite fascinating. Near Les Halles in the centre of Paris, less than a decade ago it was just a storage room for a clothes wholesaler, full of wooden shelves. The walls were all boxed over with wood, nobody remembered the place’s history, and it was up for sale.

Up to this point, there’s nothing out-of-the-ordinary – just an unremarkable room in a small unremarkable street…

… and so it was sold. However, the new owners saw something in the deeds that intrigued them, a sentence saying that the previous owners were not to be held liable for any damage to the decorations of the place. But what ‘decorations’? The space looked extremely ordinary, flat, oblong, with neon lighting.

And here’s where things get really interesting.

The new owners started work on removing the shelving and wood casing, and behind them were… coloured tiles. And not just any old coloured tiles. Dating from the 1920s, these tiles were actually scenes of women wearing very little (or less) partaking in scenes of lust-filled debauchery with satyrs and men against a background of white clouds.

It turns out that these ceramic tableaus, forgotten and hidden for decades, were part of an infamous Parisian brothel – Aux Belles Poules – a name that was also found written in mosaic in the room. It’s probably the only interior for a ‘business’ of its kind (and officially there were 177 of them in Paris in the early 20th century) that has remained intact.

These ‘houses of tolerance’ (as they were quaintly referred to in French) were very active between the 1870s and 1940s, until a law drawn up in 1945 forced them all to close (although it is said that the Belles Poules limped on until 1948). After 70 years, the place closed, became a student lodging house in the 1950s and later just a space to store boxes, with the owners preferring to hide the wall decorations of erotic scenes.

This was probably for the best! The 1960s and 1970s saw many historic architectural points of interest in Paris ruined or destroyed. Only a few remembered that the tiles were still there, and until very recently nothing was done to rescue them (they became protected historic monuments as recently as 1997). They obviously have great historic value, and now it has been restored, the space is regularly used to educate visitors about the fate of the women who ‘worked’ there.

Since 2017, the Belles Poules can also by hired to evening events, there are sometimes theatre shows, and visits for the public are held once or twice a month (generally on Saturday afternoons). Places are limited, and you can book yours here for around 14€.

A talk and show is also organised once a month with the Sœurs Papilles, with a hint of singing, dancing and a little burlesque. 25€ per person, bookings here.

Importantly, the organisers of the visits say on their website (and their sentiment applies to our article as well):

“It goes without saying that the organisation of this visit does not constitute an apology for prostitution or a denial of the suffering linked to it, but rather a means offered to all to access the historic site and learn about its history.“

French-speakers wanting to learn more about the space can listen to the podcast below, with the new owner being interviewed. You can also download the episode here.

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Aux Belles Poules (here) has a visit and talk (in French) once or twice a month (13.50€, book here) and a talk and show once a month (25€, book here)

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