An Englishman in Paris: Notes and Recollections

by Albert D. Vandam

To return to the Café de Paris and its habitués. First of all, the place itself was unlike any other restaurant of that day, even unlike its neighbour and rival, the Café Hardi, at the corner of the Rue Laffitte, on the site of the present Maison d'Or. There was no undue display of white and gold; and "the epicure was not constantly reminded that, when in the act of eating, he was not much superior to the rest of humanity," as Lord Palmerston put it when commenting upon the welcome absence of mirrors. The rooms might have been transformed at a moment's notice into private apartments for a very fastidious, refined family; for, in addition to the tasteful and costly furniture, it was the only establishment of its kind in Paris that was carpeted throughout, instead of having merely sanded or even polished floors, as was the case even in some of the best Paris restaurants as late as five and six years ago (I mean in the seventies)—Bignon, the Café Foy, and the Lion d'Or, in the Rue du Helder, excepted. The attendance was in every respect in thorough keeping with the grand air of the place, and, albeit that neither of the three or four succeeding proprietors made a fortune, or anything approaching it, was never relaxed.

On looking over these notes, I am afraid that the last paragraph will be intelligible only to a small section of my readers, consequently I venture to explain. Improved communication has brought to Paris during the third quarter of the century a great many Englishmen who, not being very familiar either with French or with French customs in their better aspect, have come to look upon the stir and bustle of the ordinary Paris restaurant, upon the somewhat free-and-easy behaviour of the waiters, upon their eccentricities of diction, upon their often successful attempts at "swelling" the total of the dinner-bill as so much matter of course. The abbreviated nomenclature the waiter employs in recapitulating the bill of fare to the patron is regarded by him as merely a skilful handling of the tongue by the native; the chances are ten to one in favour of the patron trying to imitate the same in his orders to the attendant, and deriving a certain pride from being successful. The stir and bustle is attributed to the more lively temperament of our neighbours, the free-and-easy behaviour as a wish on the waiter's part to smooth the linguistically thorny path of the benighted foreigner, the attempt to multiply items as an irrepressible manifestation of French greed.

Wherever these things occur, nowadays, the patron may be certain that he is "in the wrong shop;" but in the days of which I treat, the wrong shop was legion, especially as far as the foreigner was concerned; the Café de Paris and the Café Hardi were the notable exceptions. Truly, as Alfred de Musset said of the former, "you could not open its door for less than fifteen francs;" in other words, the prices charged were very high; but they were the same for the representatives of the nations that conquered as for those who were vanquished at Waterloo. It would be more correct to say that the personnel of the Café, from the proprietor and manager downward, were utterly oblivious of such distinctions of nationality. Every one who honoured the establishment was considered by them a grand seigneur, for whom nothing could be too good. I remember one day in '45 or '46—for M. Martin Guépet was at the head of affairs then—Balzac announcing the advent of a Russian friend, and asking Guépet to put his best foot forward. "Assuredly, monsieur, we will do so," was the answer, "because it is simply what we are in the habit of doing every day." The retort was sharp, but absolutely justified by facts. One was never told at the Café de Paris that this or that dish "could not be recommended," that "the fish could not be guaranteed." When the quality of the latter was doubtful, it did not make its appearance on the bill of fare. À propos of fish, there was a story current in the Café de Paris which may or may not have been the invention of one of the many clever literary men who foregathered there. It was to the effect that one of Guépet's predecessors—Angilbert the younger, I believe—had cast a doubt upon the historical accuracy of the facts connected with the tragic death of Vatel, the renowned chef of the Prince de Condé. According to Angilbert, Vatel did not throw himself upon his sword because the fish for Louis XIV.'s dinner had not arrived, but because it had arrived, been cooked, and was found "not to be so fresh as it might be." The elimination of those dishes would have disturbed the whole of the economy of the menu, and rather than suffer such disgrace Vatel made an end of himself. "For you see, monsieur," Angilbert is supposed to have said, "one can very well arrange a perfect dinner without fish, as long as one knows beforehand; but one cannot modify a service that has been thought out with it, when it fails at a moment's notice. As every one of my chefs is a treasure, who would not scruple to imitate the sacrifice of his famous prototype; and as I do not wish to expose him to such a heroic but inconvenient death, we take the certain for the uncertain, consequently doubtful fish means no fish."

Truth or fiction, the story accurately conveys the pride of the proprietors in the unsullied gastronomic traditions of the establishment, and there is no doubt that they were ably seconded in that respect by every one around them, even to the clientèle itself. Not a single one of the latter would have called the waiters by their names, nor would these have ventured to rehearse the names of the dishes in a kind of slang or mutilated French, which is becoming more frequent day by day, and which is at best but fit as a means of communication between waiters and scullions. Least of all, would they have numbered the clients, as is done at present. A gentleman sitting at table No. 5 was "the gentleman at table No. 5," not merely "number five." There was little need for the bellowing and shouting from one end of the room to the other, because the head waiter himself had an eye everywhere. The word "addition," which people think it good taste in the seventies and eighties to employ when asking for their bills, was never heard. People did not profess to know the nature of the arithmetical operation by which the total of their liabilities was arrived at; they left that to the cashier and the rest of the underlings.

No coal or gas was used in the Café de Paris: lamps and wood fires upstairs; charcoal, and only that of a peculiar kind, in the kitchens, which might have been a hundred miles distant, for all we knew, for neither the rattling of dishes nor the smell of preparation betrayed their vicinity. A charming, subdued hum of voices attested the presence of two or three score of human beings attending to the inner man; the idiotic giggle, the affected little shrieks of the shopgirl or housemaid promoted to be the companion of the quasi-man of the world was never heard there. The cabinet particulier was not made a feature of the Café de Paris, and suppers were out of the question. Now and then the frank laughter of the younger members of a family party, and that was all. As a rule, however, there were few strangers at the Café de Paris, or what are called chance customers, as distinct from periodical ones. But there were half a score of tables absolutely sacred from the invasion of no matter whom, such as those of the Marquis du Hallays, Lord Seymour, the Marquis de St. Cricq, M. Romieu, Prince Rostopchine, Prince Soltikoff, Dr. Véron, etc., etc. Lord Palmerston, when in Paris, scarcely ever dined anywhere else than at the Café de Paris—of course I mean when dining at a public establishment.

Almost every evening there was an interchange of dishes or of wines between those tables; for instance, Dr. Véron, of whom I will have a good deal to say in these notes, and who was very fond of Musigny vintage, rarely missed offering some to the Marquis du Hallays, who, in his turn, sent him of the finest dishes from his table. For all these men not only professed to eat well, but never to suffer from indigestion. Their gastronomy was really an art, but an art aided by science which was applied to the simplest dish. One of these was veau à la casserole, which figured at least three times a week on the bill of fare, and the like of which I have never tasted elsewhere. Its recuperative qualities were vouched for by such men as Alfred de Musset, Balzac, and Alexandre Dumas. The former partook of it whenever it was on the bill; the others often came, after a spell of hard work, to recruit their mental and bodily strength with it, and maintained that nothing set them up so effectually.

These three men were particularly interesting to me, and their names will frequently recur in these notes. I was very young, and, though perhaps not so enthusiastic about literature as I was about painting and sculpture, it would indeed have been surprising if I had remained indifferent to the fascination experienced by almost every one in their society: for let me state at once that the great poet, the great playwright, and the great novelist were even something more than men of genius; they were men of the world, and gentlemen who thought it worth their while to be agreeable companions. Unlike Victor Hugo, Lamartine, Chateaubriand, and Eugène Sue, all of whom I knew about the same time, they did not deem it necessary to stand mentally aloof from ordinary mortals. Alfred de Musset and Alexandre Dumas were both very handsome, but each in a different way. With his tall, slim figure, auburn wavy hair and beard, blue eyes, and finely-shaped mouth and nose, De Musset gave one the impression of a dandy cavalry officer in mufti, rather than of a poet: the "Miss Byron" which Préault the sculptor applied to him was, perhaps, not altogether undeserved, if judged intellectually and physically at first sight. There was a feminine grace about all his movements. The "Confessions d'un Enfant du Siècle," his play, "Frédéric and Bernerette," were apt to stir the heart of women rather than that of men; but was it not perhaps because the majority of the strong sex cannot be stirred except with a pole? And the poet who was so sensitive to everything rough as to leave invariably the coppers given to him in exchange, was unlikely to take voluntarily to such an unwieldy and clumsy instrument to produce his effects.[4]

Throughout these notes, I intend to abstain carefully from literary judgments. I am not competent to enter into them; but, if I were, I should still be reluctant to do so in the case of Alfred de Musset, who, to my knowledge, never questioned the talent of any one. De Musset improved upon better acquaintance. He was apt to strike one at first as distant and supercilious. He was neither the one nor the other, simply very reserved, and at the best of times very sad, not to say melancholy. It was not affectation, as has been said so often; it was his nature. The charge of superciliousness arose from his distressing short-sightedness, which compelled him to stare very hard at people without the least intention of being offensive.

I have said that Balzac often came, after a spell of hard work, to recruit his forces with the veau à la casserole of the Café de Paris; I should have added that this was generally in the autumn and winter, for, at the end of the spring and during the summer, the dinner hour, seven, found Balzac still a prisoner at home. Few of his acquaintances and friends ever caught sight of him, they were often in total ignorance of his whereabouts, and such news as reached them generally came through Joseph Méry, the poet and novelist, the only one who came across him during those periods of eclipse. Méry was an inveterate gambler, and spent night after night at the card-table. He rarely left it before daybreak. His way lay past the Café de Paris, and for four consecutive mornings he had met Balzac strolling leisurely up and down, dressed in a pantalon à pieds (trousers not terminating below the ankle, but with feet in them like stockings), and frock coat with velvet facings. The second morning, Méry felt surprised at the coincidence; the third, he was puzzled; the fourth, he could hold out no longer, and asked Balzac the reason of these nocturnal perambulations round about the same spot. Balzac put his hand in his pocket and produced an almanack, showing that the sun did not rise before 3.40. "I am being tracked by the officers of the Tribunal de Commerce, and obliged to hide myself during the day; but at this hour I am free, and can take a walk, for as long as the sun is not up they cannot arrest me."

I remember having read that Ouvrard, the great army contractor, had done the same for many years; nevertheless, he was arrested one day,—the authorities proved that the almanack was wrong, that the sun rose ten minutes earlier than was stated therein. He brought an action against the compiler and publishers. They had to pay him damages.