Chapter 109
"Bring me the rest."
When he came again, with another can of chicory, Grevy said:
"You have no more?"
"No, sir."
"Very well. Now go and make me a cup of coffee."
As already told, Louis XV had a great pa.s.sion for coffee, which he made himself. Lenormand, the head gardener at Versailles, raised six pounds of coffee a year which was for the exclusive use of the king. The king's fondness for coffee and for Mme. Du Barry gave rise to a celebrated anecdote of Louveciennes which was accepted as true by many serious writers. It is told in this fas.h.i.+on by Mairobert in a pamphlet scandalizing Du Barry in 1776:
His Majesty loves to make his own coffee and to forsake the cares of the government. One day the coffee pot was on the fire and, his Majesty being occupied with something else, the coffee boiled over.
"Oh France, take care! Your coffee _f---- le camp_!" cried the beautiful favorite.
Charles Vatel has denied this story.
It is related of Jean Jacques Rousseau that once when he was walking in the Tuileries he caught the aroma of roasting coffee. Turning to his companion, Bernardino de Saint-Pierre, he said, "Ah, that is a perfume in which I delight; when they roast coffee near my house, I hasten to open the door to take in all the aroma." And such was the pa.s.sion for coffee of this philosopher of Geneva that when he died, "he just missed doing it with a cup of coffee in his hand".
Barthez, confidential physician of Napoleon the first, drank a great deal of it, freely, calling it "the intellectual drink."
Bonaparte, himself, said: "Strong coffee, and plenty, awakens me. It gives me a warmth, an unusual force, a pain that is not without pleasure. I would rather suffer than be senseless."
Edward R. Emerson[356] tells the following story of the Cafe Procope.
One day while M. Saint-Foix was seated at his usual table in this cafe 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, adding that nothing he could say to the contrary would convince him that it was _not_ a confoundedly poor dinner. Thereupon a challenge was given and accepted, and the whole company present adjourned as spectators to a duel 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 princ.i.p.als 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 this gallant officer who, I doubt not, is an honorable man; but your excellency can never prevent my a.s.serting 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," persisted Saint-Foix; "and a cup of coffee"--at these words magistrates, delinquents, and auditory burst into a roar of laughter, and the antagonists forthwith became warm friends.
"Boswell in his _Life of Johnson_ tells a story of an old chevalier de Malte, of _ancienne n.o.blesse_, but in low circ.u.mstances, who was in a coffee house in Paris, where was also Julien, the great manufacturer at Gobelins, of fine tapestry, so much distinguished for the figures and the colours. The chevalier's carriage was very old. Says Julien with a plebeian insolence, 'I think, sir, you had better have your carriage new painted.'
"The chevalier looked at him with indignant contempt, and answered:
"'Well, sir, you may take it home and dye it.'
"All the coffee house rejoiced at Julien's confusion."
Sydney Smith (1771-1845) the English clergyman and humorist, once said: "If you want to improve your understanding, drink coffee; it is the intellectual beverage."
Our own William Dean Howells pays the beverage this tribute: "This coffee intoxicates without exciting, soothes you softly out of dull
The wife of the president of the United States prefers coffee to tea.
Afternoon guests at the White House may be refreshed, if they choose, by a sip of tea. But while tea is on tap for callers, Mrs. Harding always has coffee for those who, like herself, prefer it.
_Old London Coffee-House Anecdotes_
A good-sized volume might be compiled of the many anecdotes that have been written about habitues of the London coffee houses of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
[Ill.u.s.tration: DR. JOHNSON'S SEAT AT THE CHEs.h.i.+RE CHEESE]
Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), the lexicographer, was one of the most constant frequenters of the coffee houses of his day. His big, awkward figure was a familiar sight as he went about attended by his satellite, young James Boswell, who was to write about him for the delight of future generations in his marvelous _Life of Johnson_. The intellectual and moral peculiarities of the man found a natural expression in the coffee house. Johnson was fifty-four and Boswell only twenty-three when the two first met in Tom Davies' book-shop in Covent Garden. The story is told by Boswell with great particularity and characteristic naivete:
Mr. Davies mentioned my name, and respectfully introduced me to him. I was much agitated, and recollecting his prejudice against the Scotch, of which I had heard so much, I said to Davies, "Don't tell him where I come from." "From Scotland," cried Davies roguishly. "Mr. Johnson," said I, "I do indeed come from Scotland, but I cannot help it." I am willing to flatter myself that I meant this as a light pleasantry to sooth and conciliate him, and not as a humiliating abas.e.m.e.nt at the expense of my country. But however that might be, this speech was somewhat unlucky, for with that quickness of wit for which he was so remarkable, he seized the expression, "come from Scotland!" which I used In the sense of being of that country; and, as if I had come away from it, or left it, he retorted, "That, sir, I find is what a great many of your countrymen cannot help."
Nothing daunted, however, Boswell within a week called upon Johnson in his chambers. This time the doctor urged him to tarry. Three weeks later he said to him, "Come to me as often as you can." Within a fortnight thereafter Boswell was giving the great man a sketch of his own life and Johnson was exclaiming, "Give me your hand; I have taken a liking to you."
[Ill.u.s.tration: ORIGINAL COFFEE ROOM, OLD c.o.c.k TAVERN]
When people began to ask, "Who is this Scotch cur at Johnson's heels?"
Goldsmith replied: "He is not a cur; he is only a bur. Tom Davies flung him at Johnson in sport, and he has the faculty of sticking."
Thus began one of the strangest friends.h.i.+ps, out of which developed the most delightful biography in all literature. Boswell's taste for literary adventures, and Johnson's literary vagrancy met in a companions.h.i.+p that found much satisfaction in the bohemianism of the inns and coffee houses of old London. Boswell thus describes the eccentric doctor's outlook on this mode of living:
We dined today at an excellent inn at Chapel-House, where Mr.
Johnson commented on English coffee houses and inns remarking that the English triumphed over the French in one respect, in that the French had no perfection of tavern life. There is no private house, (said he) in which people can enjoy themselves so well, as at a capital tavern. Let there be ever so great plenty of good things, ever so much grandeur, ever so much elegance, ever so much desire that everybody should be easy; in the nature of things it cannot be: there must always be some degree of care and anxiety. The master of the house is anxious to entertain his guests; the guests are anxious to be agreeable to him; and no man, but a very impudent dog indeed, can as freely command what is in another man's house, as if it were his own. Whereas, at a tavern, there is a general freedom from anxiety. You are sure you are welcome: and the more noise you make, the more trouble you give, the more good things you call for, the welcomer you are. No servants will attend you with the alacrity which waiters do, who are incited by the prospect of an immediate reward in proportion as they please. No, Sir, there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn. He then repeated, with great emotion, Shenstone's lines:
"Whoe'er has travell'd life's dull round, Where'er his stages may have been, May sigh to think he still has found His warmest welcome at an inn."
Patient delving into Johnsoniana is rewarded with many anecdotes about the mad doctor philosopher and his faithful reporter who delighted in translating his genius to the world.
Boswell was a wine-bibber, but Johnson confessed to being "a hardened and shameless tea drinker." When Boswell twigged him for abstaining from the stronger drink, the doctor replied: "Sir, I have no objection to a man's drinking wine if he can do it in moderation. I find myself apt to go to excess in it and therefore, after having been for some time without it, on account of illness, I thought it better not to return to it."
Another time he said of tea: "What a delightful beverage must that be that pleases all palates at a time when they can take nothing else at breakfast."
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIREPLACE IN THE COFFEE ROOM OF THE OLD c.o.c.k TAVERN]
[Ill.u.s.tration: MORNING GOSSIP IN THE COFFEE ROOM OF THE OLD c.o.c.k TAVERN]
In his early days Johnson had David Garrick as an unwilling pupil. After the actor had become famous and his prosperity had turned his head, he was wont to "put the table in a roar" by mimicking the doctor's grimaces. There is a story that on the occasion of a certain dinner party where both were guests, Garrick indulged in a coa.r.s.e jest on the great man's table manners. After the merriment had subsided, Doctor Johnson arose solemnly and said:
"Gentlemen, you must doubtless suppose from the extreme familiarity with which Mr. Garrick has thought fit to treat me that I am an acquaintance of his; but I can a.s.sure you that until I met him here, I never saw him but once before--and then I paid five s.h.i.+llings for the sight."
A certain sycophant, thinking to curry favor with Johnson, took to laughing loud and long at everything he said. Johnson's patience at last became exhausted, and after a particularly objectionable outburst, he turned upon the boor with:
"Pray sir, what is the matter? I hope I have not said anything which you can comprehend!"
Because of his physical and mental disabilities Dr. Johnson was not a good social animal. Nevertheless, when it pleased his humor, he could be the cavalier, for his mind overcame every impediment.
It is related of him that once when a lady who was showing him around her garden expressed her regret at being unable to bring a particular flower to perfection, he arose gallantly to the occasion by taking her hand and remarking: