Paris: What Nicole saw at the Moulin Rouge

In Paris, high kicks mean high prices these days. Fiona Sturges goes in search of decadent glamour left over from the belle époque

It's almost exactly as I imagined it, all gaudy chandeliers, mirrors and thick-pile carpets. The lamp-lit tables are crammed so close together that the waiters are forced to climb over them as they go about their business. Thick-set men in lounge suits shepherd us gently but forcefully towards cash registers where we're politely relieved of £52.

No, it's not Stringfellow's. This is the Moulin Rouge in Paris, the scene of unimaginable iniquity at the end of the 19th century, and where the artist Toulouse-Lautrec drew inspiration. These days, it's coach parties that fill the half-moon concert hall, all hoping for a brief reconstruction of belle époque Paris.

More than 100 years on, we're still hooked on old notions of Parisian glamour. The popularity of Impressionist painters shows no sign of abating, with their portrayals of low and high society endlessly immortalised on coasters, calendars and greetings cards. Cinema, too, has played its part. Jean Renoir's 1955 picture, French Cancan, was a sweetly nostalgic reconstruction of the Paris of his painter father.

Now, the director Baz Luhrmann has come alive to the possibilities of the Naughty Nineties and made a modern musical film, Moulin Rouge, with Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor in the starring roles. One of the bouncers tells me that Ms Kidman sneaked into the Moulin Rouge recently for the late show, though now she probably wishes she had left it to her imagination.

As Toulouse-Lautrec himself would doubtless remark, it ain't what it used to be. The illuminated windmill remains, but the Jardin de Paris – the garden that stretched out in front of the cabaret for café-concerts in the 1890s – has disappeared. So, too, has the enormous stucco elephant built for the Universal Exhibition of 1889. But perhaps the biggest crime of all is that the bar, where Lautrec used to sit stroking his moustache and sketching the lewd goings-on, has been done away with.

Today, once you've sat down, you're strongly encouraged not to move. The programme explains how the show has been updated to meet the demands of the 21st-century audience. In other words, it's not all high kicks and frilly knickers.

During the first segment we are presented with a troupe of tall, toned girls in sparkling trouser-suits all lip-synching to a dreadful disco soundtrack. About halfway through, they whip off their outfits to reveal glittering G-strings and not a lot else. "Now you're talking," gasps a man on the next table.

There are more costumes here than you'd see in a whole Christmas of pantomimes. Sailors, slave-girls, Cossacks and clowns all come and go, with each outfit more lavish than the last. There's the odd jaw-dropping set-piece, too, such as when a scantily clad dancer is thrust into a pool of pythons and indulges in some synchronised writhing. Later, a herd of Shetland ponies is brought out to a chorus of "aaahs".

Yet where the 19th-century crowd were notoriously rowdy and often had to be restrained from storming the stage, today's audiences are largely polite, clapping at all the right moments and only cheering when the girls finally break into the long-awaited cancan.

Certainly, there is little of the bawdy high jinks that sent the French into fainting fits at the end of the last century. Louise Weber, nicknamed La Goulue, set loins alight as she kicked the top hats off her admirers' heads and then bent over to reveal an embroidered heart on the seat of her drawers. Nowadays you get a succession of women with frighteningly fixed smiles baring their breasts for tourists. Think of it as the Parisian equivalent of Madame Tussaud's, but with nipples.

Fortunately, there are parts of the capital where you can get a more authentic view of 19th-century life. Au Lapin Agile is the tumbledown rustic house in Montmartre where the artists famously used to come for the cabaret, and the patron took his payment in paintings. These days, misty-eyed Parisians fill the place at night and listen to a chanteuse belt out "La Vie en Rose", accompanied by a piano and battered accordion.

To add to the air of nostalgia, the wood-panelled walls are crammed with old posters depicting hard-bitten women with their stockings sliding down their legs or peering suspiciously out from under their boas. It's a cross between a cockney knees-up and a Victorian music-hall. Anyone can go, providing they book first, though I couldn't shake off the feeling that I was intruding on a private sing-song.

The distance between glamour and the gutter is only a matter of yards in Paris. Two blocks up from the Moulin Rouge and you're in the heart of Pigalle, the grimy red-light district where strip joints adorned with pictures of naked girls with little squares of tape over their vital regions line the streets. The Place du Tertre, up the hill, is still trading on the traditional, if hackneyed, notion of bohemian Paris, swamped as it is with badly dressed artists producing smudged portraits for a tenner a go.

The area used to be a small village just outside the city's boundaries, where Van Gogh, Renoir, Gauguin and friends used to sit glugging absinthe and talking shop. Now it's stuffed with expensive bars with names like Le CanCan all serving up burgers and chips.

Still in search of turn-of-the-century decadence, we went to Au Vieux Paris, a venue in the Marais where we had been promised French chanson, dancing and under-the-counter absinthe. When we arrived, we found a nicotine-stained café with peeling walls, cracked lino and not a customer in sight. The door was open but we didn't dare go in. Suddenly, the Moulin Rouge seemed like a great night out.

Getting there: Fiona Sturges travelled courtesy of Eurostar (08705 186 186). Prices from London Waterloo to Paris Gare du Nord start at £50 for a day return, and £70 for longer stays – book a fortnight in advance. Flights can be even cheaper. For a Heathrow-Paris return, www.thomascook.com is quoting £64.30 for August.

Accommodation: The writer stayed at the Buci Latin hotel at 34 Rue de Buci (00 33 1 4329 0720), where a double room with shower costs Fr 1,112 (£104), or with a bath Fr1,312 (£122), including breakfast.

You can also book through Design Hotels: 0800 169 8817.

Shows: Le Moulin Rouge is at Place Blanche, 82 boulevard de Clichy, 75018 Paris. For bookings and enquiries, call 00 33 1 53 09 82 82; fax 00 33 1 42 23 02 00; e-mail: reservation@moulinrouge.fr. Admission costs Fr820 (£77) for dinner and show, or Fr550 (£52) at 11pm for a half-bottle of champagne and show. Au Lapin Agile is at 22 rue des Saules. For bookings and enquiries, call 00 33 1 46 06 85 87 or visit www.au-lapin-agile.com. Admission costs Fr130 (£12).