All About Coffee

[Ill.u.s.tration: MANY OF THE EARLY PARISIAN COFFEE HOUSES FOLLOWED PASCAL'S LEAD AND AFFECTED ARMENIAN DECORATIONS

From a Seventeenth-Century Print]

A Levantine named Joseph also sold coffee in the streets, and later had several coffee shops of his own. Stephen, from Aleppo, next opened a coffee house on Pont au Change, moving, when his business prospered, to more pretentious quarters in the rue St.-Andre, facing St.-Michael's bridge.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A CORNER OF THE HISTORIC CAFe DE PROCOPE SHOWING VOLTAIRE AND DIDEROT IN DEBATE

From a rare water color]

All these, and others, were essentially the Oriental style of coffee house of the lower order, and they appealed princ.i.p.ally to the poorer cla.s.ses and to foreigners. "Gentlemen and people of fas.h.i.+on" did not care to be seen in this type of public house. But when the French merchants began to set up, first at St.-Germain's fair, "s.p.a.cious apartments in an elegant manner, ornamented with tapestries, large mirrors, pictures, marble tables, branches for candles, magnificent l.u.s.tres, and serving coffee, tea, chocolate, and other refreshments", they were soon crowded with people of fas.h.i.+on and men of letters.

In this way coffee drinking in public acquired a badge of respectability. Presently there were some three hundred coffee houses in Paris. The princ.i.p.al coffee men, in addition to plying their trade in the city, maintained coffee rooms in St.-Germain's and St.-Laurence's fairs. These were frequented by women as well as men.

_The Progenitor of the Real Parisian Cafe_

It was not until 1689, that there appeared in Paris a real French adaptation of the Oriental coffee house. This was the Cafe de Procope, opened by Francois Procope (Procopio Cultelli, or Cotelli) who came from Florence or Palermo. Procope was a _limonadier_ (lemonade vender) who had a royal license to sell spices, ices, barley water, lemonade, and other such refreshments. He early added coffee to the list, and attracted a large and distinguished patronage.

Procope, a keen-witted merchant, made his appeal to a higher cla.s.s of patrons than did Pascal and those who first followed him. He established his cafe directly opposite the newly opened Comedie Francaise, in the street then known as the rue des Fosses-St.-Germain, but now the rue de l'Ancienne Comedie. A writer of the period has left this description of the place: "The Cafe de Procope... was also called the Antre [cavern]

de Procope, because it was very dark even in full day, and ill-lighted in the evenings; and because you often saw there a set of lank, sallow poets, who had somewhat the air of apparitions."

Because of its location, the Cafe de Procope became the gathering place of many noted French actors, authors, dramatists, and musicians of the eighteenth century. It was a veritable literary salon. Voltaire was a constant patron; and until the close of the historic cafe, after an existence of more than two centuries, his marble table and chair were among the precious relics of the coffee house. His favorite drink is said to have been a mixture of coffee and chocolate. Rousseau, author and philosopher; Beaumarchais, dramatist and financier; Diderot, the encyclopedist; Ste.-Foix, the abbe of Voisenon; de Belloy, author of the _Siege of Callais_; Lemierre, author of _Artaxerce_; Crebillon; Piron; La Chaussee; Fontenelle; Condorcet; and a host of lesser lights in the French arts, were habitues of Francois Procope's modest coffee saloon near the Comedie Francaise.

Naturally, the name of Benjamin Franklin, recognized in Europe as one of the world's foremost thinkers in the days of the American Revolution, was often spoken over the coffee cups of Cafe de Procope; and when the distinguished American died in 1790, this French coffee house went into deep mourning "for the great friend of republicanism." The walls, inside and out, were swathed in black bunting, and the statesmans.h.i.+p and scientific attainments of Franklin were acclaimed by all frequenters.

The Cafe de Procope looms large in the annals of the French Revolution.

During the turbulent days of 1789 one could find at the tables, drinking coffee or stronger beverages, and engaged in debate over the burning questions of the hour, such characters as Marat, Robespierre, Danton, Hebert, and Desmoulins. Napoleon Bonaparte, then a poor artillery officer seeking a commission, was also there. He busied himself largely in playing chess, a favorite recreation of the early Parisian coffee-house patrons. It is related that Francois Procope once compelled young Bonaparte to leave his hat for security while he sought money to pay his coffee score.

After the Revolution, the Cafe de Procope lost its literary prestige and sank to the level of an ordinary restaurant. During the last half of the nineteenth century, Paul Verlaine, bohemian, poet, and leader of the symbolists, made the Cafe de Procope his haunt; and for a time it regained some of its lost popularity. The Restaurant Procope still survives at 13 rue de l'Ancienne Comedie.

History records that, with the opening of the Cafe de Procope, coffee became firmly established in Paris. In the reign of Louis XV there were 600 cafes in Paris. At the close of the eighteenth century there were more than 800. By 1843 the number had increased to more than 3000.

_The Development of the Cafes_

Coffee's vogue spread rapidly, and many cabarets and famous eating houses began to add it to their menus. Among these was the Tour d'Argent (silver tower), which had been opened on the Quai de la Tournelle in 1582, and speedily became Paris's most fas.h.i.+onable restaurant. It still is one of the chief attractions for the epicure, retaining the reputation for

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CAFe DE PROCOPE IN 1743

From an engraving by Bosredon]

Another tavern that took up coffee after Procope, was the Royal Drummer, which Jean Ramponaux established at the Courtille des Porcherons and which followed Magny's. His hostelry rightly belongs to the tavern cla.s.s, although coffee had a prominent place on its menu. It became notorious for excesses and low-cla.s.s vices during the reign of Louis XV, who was a frequent visitor. Low and high were to be found in Ramponaux's cellar, particularly when some especially wild revelry was in prospect. Marie Antoinette once declared she had her most enjoyable time at a wild _farandole_ in the Royal Drummer. Ramponaux was taken to its heart by fas.h.i.+onable Paris; and his name was used as a trade mark on furniture, clothes, and foods.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CAs.h.i.+ER'S COUNTER IN A PARIS COFFEE HOUSE OF 1782

From a drawing by Retif de la Bretonne]

The popularity of Ramponaux's Royal Drummer is attested by an inscription on an early print showing the interior of the cafe.

Translated, it reads:

The pleasures of ease untroubled to taste, The leisure of home to enjoy without haste, Perhaps a few hours at Magny's to waste, Ah, that was the old-fas.h.i.+oned way!

Today all our laborers, everyone knows, Go running away ere the working hours close, And why? They must be at Monsieur Ramponaux'!

Behold, the new style of cafe!

When coffee houses began to crop up rapidly in Paris, the majority centered in the Palais Royal, "that garden spot of beauty, enclosed on three sides by three tiers of galleries," which Richelieu had erected in 1636, under the name of Palais Cardinal, in the reign of Louis XIII. It became known as the Palais Royal in 1643; and soon after the opening of the Cafe de Procope, it began to blossom out with many attractive coffee stalls, or rooms, sprinkled among the other shops that occupied the galleries overlooking the gardens.

_Life In The Early Coffee Houses_

Diderot tells in 1760, in his _Rameau's Nephew_, of the life and frequenters of one of the Palais Royal coffee houses, the Regency (_Cafe de la Regence_):

In all weathers, wet or fine, it is my practice to go toward five o'clock in the evening to take a turn in the Palais Royal.... If the weather is too cold or too wet I take shelter in the Regency coffee house. There I amuse myself by looking on while they play chess. Nowhere in the world do they play chess as skillfully as in Paris and nowhere in Paris as they do at this coffee house; 'tis here you see Legal the profound, Philidor the subtle, Mayot the solid; here you see the most astounding moves, and listen to the sorriest talk, for if a man be at once a wit and a great chess player, like Legal, he may also be a great chess player and a sad simpleton, like Joubert and Mayot.

The beginnings of the Regency coffee house are a.s.sociated with the legend that Lefevre, a Parisian, began peddling coffee in the streets of Paris about the time Procope opened his cafe in 1689. The story has it that Lefevre later opened a cafe near the Palais Royal, selling it in 1718 to one Leclerc, who named it the Cafe de la Regence, in honor of the regent of Orleans, a name that still endures on a broad sign over its doors. The n.o.bility had their rendezvous there after having paid their court to the regent.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CAFe FOY IN THE PALAIS ROYAL, 1789

From an engraving by Bosredon]

To name the patrons of the Cafe de la Regence in its long career would be to outline a history of French literature for more than two centuries. There was Philidor the "greatest theoretician of the eighteenth century, better known for his chess than his music"; Robespierre, of the Revolution, who once played chess with a girl--disguised as a boy--for the life of her lover; Napoleon, who was then noted more for his chess than his empire-building propensities; and Gambetta, whose loud voice, generally raised in debate, disturbed one chess player so much that he protested because he could not follow his game. Voltaire, Alfred de Musset; Victor Hugo, Theophile Gautier, J.J.

Rousseau, the Duke of Richelieu, Marshall Saxe, Buffon, Rivarol, Fontenelle, Franklin, and Henry Murger are names still a.s.sociated with memories of this historic cafe: Marmontel and Philidor played there at their favorite game of chess. Diderot tells in his _Memoirs_ that his wife gave him every day nine sous to get his coffee there. It was in this establishment that he worked on his _Encyclopedia_.

Chess is today still in favor at the Regence, although the players are not, as were the earlier patrons, obliged to pay by the hour for their tables with extra charges for candles placed by the chess-boards. The present Cafe de la Regence is in the rue St.-Honore, but retains in large measure its aspect of olden days.

Michelet, the historian, has given us a rhapsodic pen picture of the Parisian cafes under the regency:

Paris became one vast cafe. Conversation in France was at its zenith. There were less eloquence and rhetoric than in '89. With the exception of Rousseau, there was no orator to cite. The intangible flow of wit was as spontaneous as possible. For this sparkling outburst there is no doubt that honor should be ascribed in part to the auspicious revolution of the times, to the great event which created new customs, and even modified human temperament--the advent of coffee.

Its effect was immeasurable, not being weakened and neutralized as it is today by the brutalizing influence of tobacco. They took snuff, but did not smoke. The cabaret was dethroned, the ign.o.ble cabaret, where, during the reign of Louis XIV, the youth of the city rioted amid wine-casks in the company of light women. The night was less thronged with chariots. Fewer lords found a resting place in the gutter. The elegant shop, where conversation flowed, a salon rather than a shop, changed and enn.o.bled its customs. The reign of coffee is that of temperance. Coffee, the beverage of sobriety, a powerful mental stimulant, which, unlike spirituous liquors, increases clearness and lucidity; coffee, which suppresses the vague, heavy fantasies of the imagination, which from the perception of reality brings forth the sparkle and sunlight of truth; coffee anti-erotic....

The three ages of coffee are those of modern thought; they mark the serious moments of the brilliant epoch of the soul.

Arabian coffee is the pioneer, even before 1700. The beautiful ladies that you see in the fas.h.i.+onable rooms of Bonnard, sipping from their tiny cups--they are enjoying the aroma of the finest coffee of Arabia. And of what are they chatting? Of the seraglio, of Chardin, of the Sultana's coiffure, of the _Thousand and One Nights_ (1704). They compare the ennui of Versailles with the paradise of the Orient.

Very soon, in 1710-1720, commences the reign of Indian coffee, abundant, popular, comparatively cheap. Bourbon, our Indian island, where coffee was transplanted, suddenly realizes unheard-of happiness. This coffee of volcanic lands acts as an explosive on the Regency and the new spirit of things. This sudden cheer, this laughter of the old world, these overwhelming flashes of wit, of which the sparkling verse of Voltaire, the _Persian Letters_, give us a faint idea! Even the most brilliant books have not succeeded in catching on the wing this airy chatter, which comes, goes, flies elusively. This is that spirit of ethereal nature which, in the _Thousand and One Nights_, the enchanter confined in his bottle.

But what phial would have withstood that pressure?

The lava of Bourbon, like the Arabian sand, was unequal to the demand. The Regent recognized this and had coffee transported to the fertile soil of our Antilles. The strong coffee of Santo Domingo, full, coa.r.s.e, nouris.h.i.+ng as well as stimulating, sustained the adult population of that period, the strong age of the encyclopedia. It was drunk by Buffon, Diderot, Rousseau, added its glow to glowing souls, its light to the penetrating vision of the prophets gathered in the cave of Procope, who saw at the bottom of the black beverage the future rays of '89. Danton, the terrible Danton, took several cups of coffee before mounting the tribune.

'The horse must have its oats,' he said.

The vogue of coffee popularized the use of sugar, which was then bought by the ounce at the apothecary's shop. Dufour says that in Paris they used to put so much sugar in the coffee that "it was nothing but a syrup of blackened water." The ladies were wont to have their carriages stop in front of the Paris cafes and to have their coffee served to them by the porter on saucers of silver.

Every year saw new cafes opened. When they became so numerous, and compet.i.tion grew so keen, it was necessary to invent new attractions for customers. Then was born the _cafe chantant_, where songs, monologues, dances, little plays and farces (not always in the best taste), were provided to amuse the frequenters. Many of these _cafes chantants_ were in the open air along the Champs-Elysees. In bad weather, Paris provided the pleasure-seeker with the Eldorado, Alcazar d'Hiver, Scala, Gaiete, Concert du XIXme Siecle, Folies Bobino, Rambuteau, Concert Europeen, and countless other meeting places where one could be served with a cup of coffee.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CAFe DES MILLE COLONNES IN 1811

From an engraving by Bosredon]

As in London, certain cafes were noted for particular followings, like the military, students, artists, merchants. The politicians had their favorite resorts. Says Salvandy:[86]