CHAPTER X.
BOULEVARD AND OTHER CAFÉS.
The Café Littéraire—Café Procope—Café Foy—Bohemian Cafés—Café Momus—The Death of Molière—New Year’s Gifts.
THE history of France is in a large degree the history of its cafés; and the French might well retort that the history of England is to be read in its tavern signs. On the connection between our tavern signs and our naval and military heroes it would be superfluous to insist. We have, it is true, our Dogs and Ducks, our Geese and Gridirons, our Bells and Horns, but we have also our Admiral Keppels, our Wellington Arms, our Napier’s Heads; and taking them altogether, the names of our hostelries indicate the various epochs of their origin in a remarkable manner. Another characteristic of the British tavern sign as compared with the French enseigne, whether of the café, the restaurant, or the tobacco-shop, is the permanency of the former. Who ever heard of the “Earl of Chatham” being converted into the “Sir Robert Peel,” or of “Lord Nelson” turning into “Sir Charles Napier”? Just the contrary takes place in France, where all the cafés, tobacco-shops, theatres, steamers, and even omnibuses that rejoice in what may be called representative titles, change their signs and their appellations with each successive dynasty.
But it is above all in the cafés proper that the history of France is to be read; and not the political history alone, for it can be shown that they also reflect every social, literary, and commercial change that takes place in the French metropolis. The demoiselle du comptoir in the more popular quarters of Paris is herself an important historical figure, appearing as she did during the African war as an Algérienne, in the days of the Second Republic as a priestess of Liberty, and during the siege of Sebastopol as a Tartar girl of the Crimea. But she is a political rather than a social index. Such also were the United Cooks, whose miserable gargotes flourished during the Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity period, with their bœuf à la République, their agneau à la Robespierre, their veau à la baïonnette, and their mouton à la sauce rouge. It would be difficult to say which of these was the most economical, or, above all, the most indigestible.
Far different were the restaurants and cafés whose titles and interior arrangements might be looked upon as indicative of the social and intellectual movement of the nation. Of these, the most remarkable have, at various periods, been the huge Literary Café on the Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle, the Electric Cafés—of which there were at one time several—between the Porte Saint-Martin and the Théâtre Lyrique, and the Café Oriental, near the Boulevard du Temple. Most provincial Frenchmen and foreigners who have visited Paris in the character of sight-seers have been conducted to the dreary Café des Aveugles, and probably to the absurd Café des Singes; but it is only those who have wandered idly about the boulevards, careless how they might be devoured, that can have found their way to the Literary, the Electric, or the Oriental Café.
The Café Littéraire (to go back to some ancient notes made on the subject by the present writer) “was a building of which it would be little to say that it was more magnificent than an English palace. Above the portico the title of the establishment, in gigantic letters and in striking relief, was conspicuous. The stone staircase which led to the entrance was so imposing that as you ascended it you instinctively put your hand in your pocket to assure yourself that you had a respectable number of francs at your disposal. In the vestibule stood two officials; one the under-waiter, the other the sub-editor of the establishment. ‘Does monsieur wish to eat?’ ‘Does monsieur wish to read?’ said the two functionaries at the same moment. Anxious to offend neither, and not possessing the art of eating and reading simultaneously, we replied that we wished to play billiards. ‘You will find the professor and tables in abundance on the first floor,’ said the under-waiter. ‘Allow me to present you with the carte of my department;’ and he handed me an ordinary carte du jour. ‘Here is the carte of the department with which I have the honour to be connected,’ said the sub-editor, giving me at the same time an astounding unheard-of literary bill of fare, with poetic dishes by Lamartine and Victor Hugo, and prose entrées {108} by the elder Dumas, Soulié, and George Sand. At the foot of the menu were printed the following General Rules:—Every customer spending a franc in this establishment is entitled to one volume of any work, to be selected at will from our vast collection; or in that proportion up to the largest sum he may expend. N.B.—To avoid delay, gentleman consumers who may require an entire romance are requested to name their author with the soup.’ After dining we repaired to the billiard-room and played a couple of games, for which two francs and a half were charged. Having paid the debt, and received a voucher for the sum, we were waited on by the editor-in-chief. In strict justice, the voucher entitled us to two volumes and a half, but the editor assured us that it was contrary to the rules of the establishment to serve less than an entire livraison. To ask for half a livraison, he said, was like ordering half a mutton-chop or half a lemonade.”
The establishment of the Café Littéraire was contemporaneous with the first issue, on a large scale, of three-franc volumes and four-sou livraisons, with liberty of the Press, open discussion, and the ascendency of literary men in connection with politics. As a natural consequence of this general intellectual activity, a taste for popular science arose, which the astronomer on the Pont-Neuf, with his long telescope and his interminable orations, was unable to satisfy.
The electric cafés instituted at this period were sufficiently curious establishments. A thirsty Parisian entering one of them for the first time in his life, found himself in a place which resembled a buffet more than a café, and in which the most remarkable object was an enormous metal counter. Having swallowed his beverage, he proceeded to place his piece of money on the counter, when, to his astonishment, he received a violent shock in the right arm, which probably caused him to drop the coin as if it were red-hot. “I have had an electric shock!” he would exclaim to some frequenter lounging near him. “Impossible!” would be the reply. “You must have knocked your funny-bone against the edge of the counter.” Protesting that he had received a galvanic shock, the victim was assured by the lounger, who had been lying in wait for his joke, that he had simply been electrified by the charms of the young lady behind the counter, just as a theatrical audience is said to be electrified by an actress or prima donna. Again, however, on receiving his change the new customer experienced a sharp shock, being the more astonished inasmuch as the habitués present put down and took up their money evidently without feeling the electric current. Then he went away mystified, to return, perhaps, later in the evening with an inexperienced friend, whom, partly from curiosity, partly in a spirit of mischief, he led up to the counter. His friend no sooner touched it than he started back electrified, but he himself found that he could this time touch it with impunity. He had now obviously been admitted amongst the initiated; and when he had gone on drinking and spending enough to entitle him to confidence, the beautiful demoiselle du comptoir condescended to explain to him the entire mystery. At the foot of the metal counter was a piece of strip iron connected with one of the wires of a galvanic battery, the other wire communicating with the counter itself. When any of the initiated touched the counter the presiding goddess stopped the current, which only novices were intended to feel. The whole device was simply employed to amuse customers. The electric counters became very popular, and had rapidly spread all over Paris, when the Government, thinking probably that such practical jokes might sometimes be carried too far, absolutely suppressed the cafés électriques.
A whole chapter might be devoted to the literary cafés of Paris, much more numerous than ever were the literary coffee-houses of London in the last century. The first Paris café destined to identify itself with literature was the Café Procope, so called from the name of its founder, Procopio Cultelli, who, in the earliest days of coffee-drinking among the French and among Europeans generally, installed himself at No. 13, Rue des Fossés-Saint-Germain, opposite the Comédie Française. The wily Sicilian had evidently opened his coffee-house in view of the French actors. But it was the authors who became its principal frequenters; first the dramatists connected with the Comédie Française, and afterwards authors of all kinds. In France, however, there are scarcely any authors who do not at least try their hand at dramatic writing. Neither Crébillon, with his Catalina, nor Jean-Baptiste Rousseau, with Jason, nor Piron, with Fernand Cortez, nor Diderot, with Le Fils naturel, nor Voltaire, with so many celebrated plays, can be regarded solely or specially as dramatists; yet all of them contributed to the French theatre, and all are remembered among the frequenters of the {109} Café Procope.