THE CAFÉ PROCOPE
IN the short, busy little street, the Rue de l'Ancienne-Comédie, which runs from the Boulevard St. Germain, in a line from the Théâtre National de l'Odéon and connecting with the Rue Mazarin, its continuation, the heavy dome of the Institut looming at its end, is to be found probably the most famous café in Paris, for in its day it has been the rendezvous of the most noted French littérateurs, politicians, and savants. What is more, the Procope was the first café established in Paris, originating the appellation "café" to a place where coffee is served, for it was here that coffee was introduced to France as an after-dinner comforter.
That was when the famous café was in its glory. Some of the great celebrities who made it famous have been dead for nearly two hundred years, though its greatest fame came a century afterwards; and now the café, no longer glorious as it was when the old Théâtre Français stood opposite, reposes in a quiet street far from the noise and glitter and life of the boulevards, and lives on the splendid memories that crowd it. Other cafés by the thousand have sprung into existence, and the word has spread to coffee saloons and restaurants throughout Christendom; and the ancient rive droite nurses the history and relics of the golden days of its glory, alone in a quiet street, surrounded by tightly shut shops, and the calm of a sleeping village.
Still, it retains many of its ancient characteristics and much of the old-time quaintness peculiar to itself and setting it wholly apart, and it is yet the rendezvous of littérateurs and artists, who, if not so famous as the great men in whose seats they sit, play a considerable rôle in the life of modern Paris.
The front of the café is a neat little terrace off the street, screened by a fanciful net-work of vines and shrubbery that spring from green painted boxes and that conceal cosey little tables and corners placed behind them. Instead of the usual showy plate-windows, one still finds the quaint old window-panes, very small carreaux, kept highly polished by the tireless garçon apprentice.