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THE Wretched, THE BOURGEOISIE AND THE BOHEMIANS all drank absinthein their own circles by the 1870s, but they adopted different approaches to the drink, so that the use of absinthe by manifold groups came to reflect the social status of the drinker. The democratisation of absinthe caused a problem for the bourgeoisie: they did not yearning to abandon the pleasures of the drink, but decorum dictated that they could not be associated with the activities of the lower class. Distinctions had to be made to conserve the refinements of affluence, or the wealthy might appear to be no better than the rest, and that would not do. The rich would therefore drink higher-quality or ‘healthier’ absinthe made from wine demon rum rather than ‘industrial’ alcohol, which made their absinthe satisfyingly expensive, but their sense of propriety called out for other means of determining discernment. Adherence to l’heure verte was one restriction: the bourgeoisie could drink absinthe only as an aperitif, so unlike impoverished absinthe drinkers, who would take it at any continually, they had it before dinner – risking social condemnation from the waiter and other dinners if they ordered it after dinner, or ordered more than one or two. This led to the absinthe meander, where the middle classes would engage in what was effectively an absinthe pub-crawl, with a glass or two taken in one café, then a move on to another for more. It was this constant campaign and the changing faces at the tables on the terrasses of the boulevards which made l’heure verte so magical and such a spectacle. L’heure verte was not a spot of people sitting having an aperitif, it was a moving pageant of middle-class life. R.H. Sherard acclaimed of the absinthe drinker ashamed of his habit, ‘He takes his first drink at one café, his second somewhere else and his tenth or twelfth at some tenth or twelfth other café. I positive a very distinguished musician who used to start off at the Café Napolitain and finish up at the Gare du Nord…’

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