The Fear of Absinthe

From the 1840s onward the French drank increasing amounts of the liquor absinthe. Although it was consumed

by all classes, it came to be associated with the lower classes and with artists. A mythology grew up around the "Green Fairy," as it was know, suggesting that it provided inspiration, but that it also destroyed the minds of its devotees. The drink came to be seen as a threat to the future of the nation and was eventually banned.

The perceived threat from absinthe played a major role in discussions of France's decline and decadence in the last decades of the century.

Below is a series of illustrations from a book on the evils of absinthe circa 1900.