The Club des Hachichins was founded in Paris in 1844 by Doctor Jacques-Joseph Moreau de Tours, and was dedicated to the study and experimentation of the resin derived from hemp flowers, generally consumed in the form of a greenish paste or jam mixed with fat, honey and pistachios.
Sessions were held monthly at the home of painter Joseph Ferdinant Boissard de Boisdener, at the Hôtel de Lauzun (Hôtel Pimodan) on the Île Saint-Louis, in an apartment rented to the painter by Baron Jérôme Pichon.
A large number of French scientists, men of letters and artists of the period attended certain sessions of the Hachichins club.
Théophile Gautier was one of the first poets to take part in the sessions. He would later even write a book, entitled " Le Club des hachichins ", dedicated to this organization. It was preceded by the publication of an article on the subject in February 1846 in the " Revue des Deux Mondes ", explaining the content and context of the experiments carried out at the club des hachichins. The book's introduction describes Théophile Gautier's first visit to the club:
" One evening in December, obeying a mysterious summons, written in enigmatic terms understood by some affiliates, unintelligible to others, I arrived in a remote neighborhood, a kind of oasis of solitude in the middle of Paris, which the river, by surrounding it with its two arms, seemed to defend it against the encroachments of civilization, for it was in an old house on the Île Saint-Louis, the Hôtel Pimodan, built by Lauzun, that the bizarre club of which I had recently become a member held its monthly sessions, which I was about to attend for the first time.
Théophile Gautier invited a number of his friends, and gradually helped to expand the Hachichins club. It was here, in particular, that he met Charles Baudelaire for the first time. Théophile Gautier even wrote the preface to the poets' "The Hachichins". Fleurs du mal "Charles Baudelaire's famous masterpiece.
Baudelaire returned to the Hôtel Pimodan from time to time, and later recounted some of his experiences at the club in his book " Artificial paradises "A study on the effects of hemp flower resin, among other things.
For a time, from 1843 to 1845, he even lived in the apartment above the Hachichins club (renting it for 350 francs, he found inspiration for the poem " An invitation to travel").
Other celebrities who visited the club from time to time included painters Honoré Daumier and Eugène Delacroix, and writers Gérard de Nerval, Gustave Flaubert, Alexandre Dumas and Honoré de Balzac.