The Closerie des Lilas, though less generally popular than the Chaumière, was more particularly associated with Bohemia than the latter, for Murger, Vitu, Fauchéry, Théodore de Banville, and one or two others of that set frequented it regularly, as a French writer[32] says, "avec quelques comparses sans importance," among whom, no doubt, were Mimi and Musette. This little dancing-hall began in 1838 as La Chartreuse, being so called because it was on the site of the old Carthusian monastery in the Rue d'Enfer. It was in some sort the trial-ground for those of the fair sex who aspired to become stars of the Prado and the Chaumière. Privat d'Anglemont has described it in a rare pamphlet as it was in its early days under its extraordinary manager, Carnaud. As La Chartreuse it was the most primitive kind of _guingette_, the dancing-place being a large marquee, into which one descended by a steep flight of steps. On the left were an orchestra and _café_, and the only ornaments were nine plaster statues representing the Muses, which were handily adapted for supporting petroleum lamps on their arms. "There," says Privat d'Anglemont, "decent dress was not _de rigueur_; one came as one liked, or rather as one could--the women in bonnets or, in default of other adornments, covered simply by their hair, and the men in blouses. It certainly was the most original bar in Paris. It had a physiognomy of its own, strange, quaint, even a little burlesque, but it existed. Its population was to be seen nowhere else; it seemed to exist only at the Chartreuse and for the Chartreuse. Since this ball disappeared its population has completely vanished." [Illustration: La Guinguette] Everything about the Chartreuse was original, not only the dancers and the dances but the orchestra, the music, and the manager. Every kind of "percussion" was added to the usual instruments, the noise of money-bags, pistol shots, rows of explosive caps, resounding anvils, and sheets of metal struck to represent the roaring of lions and tigers. All the music was composed by Carnaud himself, who was conductor, first violin, _restaurateur_, composer, and advertisement-writer in one. At every special _fête_ he invented a new quadrille and a new exotic word to describe it, such as "la fête des vendanges, quadrille déchirancochicandard," or "l'hôtel des haricots,[33] avec accompaniments de chaînes et de bruits de clefs, grand quadrille exhilarandéliranchocnosophe."