Table traits, with something on them

by Dr. Doran

THE FRENCH CAFÉS.

In the reign of Louis XV. there were not less than six hundred cafés in Paris. London, at the same period, could not count as many dozens. Under Louis Napoleon, the cafés have reached to the amazing number of between three and four thousand. All these establishments acknowledge the Café Procope as the founder of the dynasty, although, indeed, there were coffee-vendors in Paris before the time of the accomplished Sicilian. “Vixerunt fortes ante Agamemnona.”

The consumption of coffee in Paris, at the period of the breaking out of the Revolution, was something enormous. The French West-Indian Islands furnished eighty millions of pounds annually, and this was irrespective of what was derived from the East. The two sources together were not sufficient to supply the kingdom. Thence adulterations, fortunes to the adulterators, and that supremacy of chicory, which has destroyed the well-earned reputation of French coffee.

I have already spoken of the Café Procope, and here I will only add an anecdote illustrative of the scenes that sometimes occurred there, and of the national character generally in the reign of Louis XV. One afternoon that M. de Saint Foix was seated at his usual table, an officer of the King’s Body-Guard entered, sat down, and ordered “a cup of coffee, with milk, and a roll,” adding, “It will serve me for a dinner!” At this Saint Foix remarked aloud, that “a cup of coffee, with milk, and a roll, was a confoundedly poor dinner.” The officer remonstrated; Saint Foix reiterated his remark, and again and again declared, that nothing the gallant officer could say to the contrary, would convince him that a cup of coffee, with milk, and a roll, was not a confoundedly poor dinner. Thereupon a challenge was given and accepted, and the whole of the persons present adjourned as spectators of a fight, which ended by Saint Foix receiving a wound in the arm. “That is all very well,” said the wounded combatant; “but I call you to witness, gentlemen, that I am still profoundly convinced, that a cup of coffee, with milk, and a roll, is a confoundedly poor dinner!” At this moment, the principals were arrested, and carried before the Duke de Noailles, in whose presence Saint Foix, without waiting to be questioned, said, “Monseigneur, I had not the slightest intention of offending the gallant officer, who, I doubt not, is an honourable man; but Your Excellency can never prevent my asserting, that a cup of coffee, with milk, and a roll, is a confoundedly poor dinner.” “Why, so it is,” said the Duke. “Then I am not in the wrong,” remarked Saint Foix; “and a cup of coffee,”——at these words Magistrates, delinquents, and auditory, burst into a roar of laughter, and the antagonists became friends. It was a more bloodless issue than that which occurred to Michel Lepelletier, in later years, at the Café Février. He was seated at dinner there, when an ex-garde-du-corps, named Paris, approached him, inquired if he were the Lepelletier who had voted for the death of Louis XVI., and, receiving an affirmative reply, drew forth a dagger, and swiftly slew him on the spot.

Before Procope, the Armenian, Pascal, sold coffee at the Fair of St. Germain, at three-halfpence a cup; and the beverage was sung by the poet Thomas in terms not exactly like those with which Delille subsequently sang the virtues of the tree. The French coffee-houses at once gained the popularity to which they aspired. To Pascal succeeded Maliban, and then Gregoire opened his establishment in the Rue Mazarin, in the vicinity of players and play-goers. At the same time, there was a man in Paris, called “the lame Candiot,” who carried ready-made coffee about from door to door, and sold it for a penny per cup, sugar included. The café at the foot of the bridge of Notre-Dame was founded by Joseph; that at the foot of the bridge of St. Michel, by Etienne; and both of these are more ancient than that of Procope, who was the first, however, who made a fortune by his speculation. The Quai de l’Ecole had its establishment, (the Café Manoury,) which I believe still exists, as does the Café de la Régence, which dates from the time of the Regent Duke of Orleans, and where Rousseau used to play at chess, and appear in his Armenian costume. It was also frequented, incog., by the Emperor Joseph. The oldest café in the Palais Royal is the celebrated Café de Foy, so called from the name of its founder. Carl Vernet was one of its most constant patrons. He was there on one occasion, when some repairs were going on, and, in his impatience, he flung a wet colouring brush from him, which struck the ceiling and left a spot. He immediately ascended the ladder, and with a touch of his finger converted the stain into a swallow; and his handywork was still to be seen on the ceiling, when I was last in Paris. It was before the Café de Foy that Camille Desmoulins harangued the mob, in July, 1789, with such effect, that they took up arms, destroyed the Bastille, and inaugurated the Revolution.

The Café de Valois will long be remembered for its aristocratic character; that of Montansier, on the other hand, was remarkable for the coarseness of its frequenters, and the violence with which they discussed politics, especially at the period of the Restoration. The Café du Caveau was more joyously noisy with its gay artists and broad songs. The Empire brought two establishments into popular favour, both of which appealed to the lovers of beauty as well as of coffee. The first was the Café du Bosquet, and the second the Café des Mille Colonnes. Each was celebrated for the magnificent attractions of the presiding lady,—the belle limonadière, as she was at first called, or the dame du comptoir, as refinement chose to name her. Madame Romain, at the Mille Colonnes, had a longer reign than her rival; and the lady was altogether a more remarkable person. In the reign of Louis XVIII., her seat was composed of the throne of Jerome, King of Westphalia,—which was sold by auction on the bankruptcy of his Majesty. Madame Romain descended from it, like a weary Queen, to take refuge in a nunnery; and, curiously enough, the ex-King has recovered his “throne,” which now figures, in the reduced aspect of a simple arm-chair, in the salon of his residence at the Palais Royal. After the abdication of Madame Romain, the Mille Colonnes endeavoured to secure success by very meretricious means. Girls of a brazen quality of beauty bore through the apartments flaming bowls of punch, usually taken after the coffee; and the beverage and the bearers were equally bad.

As the Café Chrêtien was once thoroughly Jacobin, so the Café Lemblin became entirely Imperial, and was the focus of the Opposition after the return of the Bourbons. It was famous for its chocolate, as well as for its coffee. When the Allies were at Paris, it was hardly safe for the officers to enter the Café Lemblin, and many scenes of violence are described as having occurred there, and many a duel was fought with fatal effect, after a café dispute between French and foreign officers,—and all for national honour. The Bourbon officers were far more insulting in the cafés to the ex-imperial “braves,” than the latter were to the invading Captains,—and they generally paid dearly for their temerity. Finally,—for to name all the cafés in Paris, would require an encyclopædia,—it is worthy of notice that Tortoni’s, which is now a grave adjunct to the Bourse, first achieved success by the opposite process of billiard-playing. A broken-down provincial advocate, Spolar of Rennes, came to Paris with a bad character, and a capital cue; and the latter he handled so wonderfully at the Café Tortoni, that all Paris went to witness his feats. Talleyrand patronized him, backed his playing, and gained no inconsiderable sum by the cue-driving of Spolar, whose star culminated when he was appointed “Professor of Billiards to Queen Hortense,”—an appointment which sounds strange, but which was thought natural enough at the time; and, considering all things, so it was.

There is one feature in the French cafés which strikes an observer as he first contemplates it. I allude to the intensity, gravity, and extent of the domino-playing. A quartett party will spend half the evening at this mystery, with nothing to enliven it but the gentlest of conversation, and the lightest of beer, or a simple petit verre. The Government wisely thinks that a grave domino-player can be given to neither immorality nor conspiracies. But a British Government proudly scorns to tolerate such insipidities in Britons. British tradesmen, at the end of the day, may be perfectly idle, spout blasphemy, and get as drunk as they please, in any London tavern, provided they do not therewith break the peace; but, let the reprobates only remain obstinately sober, and play at dominoes, then they offend the immaculate justice of Justices, and landlords and players are liable to be fined. So, on Sabbath nights, the working-classes have thrown open to their edification the gin-palaces, which invite not in vain; but if one of these same classes should, on the same Sunday evening, knock at the religiously-closed door of a so-called free library, the secretary’s maid who answers the appeal would be pale with horror at the atrocity of the applicant. And what is the bewildered Briton to do? He looks in at church, where, if there be a few free seats, they have a look about them so as to make him understand that he is in his fustian, and that he and the miserable sinners in their fine cloth are not on an equality in the house of God; and so he turns sighingly away, and goes where the law allows him,—to the house of gin.

But, leaving the further consideration of these matters to my readers, let us now address ourselves to the sketching of a class whose most illustrious members have borne witness to their own excellency, not exactly according to the fashion spoken of by Shakspeare; namely, by putting a strange face on their own perfection.