And then, as Silviane's carriage--a large closed landau, whose coachman, a sturdy, handsome fellow, sat waiting impassively on his box--was down below, they started off.
The Chamber of Horrors was installed in premises on the Boulevard de Rochechouart, formerly occupied by a cafe whose proprietor had become bankrupt.* It was a suffocating place, narrow, irregular, with all sorts of twists, turns, and secluded nooks, and a low and smoky ceiling.

And nothing could have been more rudimentary than its decorations.

The walls had simply been placarded with posters of violent hues, some of the crudest character, showing the barest of female figures.

Behind a piano at one end there was a little platform reached by a curtained doorway.
For the rest, one simply found a number of bare wooden forms set alongside the veriest pot-house tables, on which the glasses containing various beverages left round and sticky marks.

There was no luxury, no artistic feature, no cleanliness even.