Edwards Henry Sutherland
Old and New Paris: Its History, Its People, and Its Places, v. 1
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 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 Café Procope.
The Café Procope was still at the height of its reputation when, in 1784, Beaumarchais’ Marriage of Figaro was produced; and it was the scene of a great literary gathering immediately before the representation of that famous comedy. After the Revolution, however, it gradually lost its character as a literary centre.
And now the Comédie Française crossed the water – an unmistakable sign that the left bank no longer possessed its ancient importance, and that everything not already to be found on the right bank was gradually moving to that favoured shore. The Café Procope still exists, but it has quite lost its old literary character; nor is it much frequented even by the students, who on the left bank form so important a part of the community.
The Café de la Régence owes its name to the period in which it was established. Haunted as it was by chess-players, it was nevertheless the resort of distinguished writers, with Voltaire, d’Alembert, and Marmontel amongst them. Here Diderot sat side by side with the Emperor Joseph II. Robespierre looked in now and then to have a game of chess, and among other occasional visitors of distinction was the youthful General Bonaparte. Nor, from the list of the modern frequenters of the Café de la Régence, must Méry or Alfred de Musset be omitted.
Close to the Café de la Régence stood the Café Foy, celebrated under the Regency for its beautiful dame du comptoir, of whom the Duke of Orleans became desperately enamoured. It was from this cafe that Camille Desmoulins, on the 12th of July, 1789, marched forth to begin the attack which ended in the overthrow of the ancient régime. Until its demolition, not many years ago, the Café Foy was known as one of the very few cafés in Paris where smoking was not allowed. In ancient days cafés were broadly divided into cafés simply so called and cafés-estaminets; and in the latter only, as in a beer-house, could the customer smoke. The Café Foy was at one time greatly in favour with old gentlemen, dating from a now remote period, when the smoking of tobacco was considered not altogether (in Byronic language) a “gentlemanly vice.” The Café Foy was known, moreover, by a certain swallow painted on the ceiling by Carle Vernet (father of the more celebrated Horace Vernet). He was lunching there one day with a joyous party of friends, when a bottle of champagne was opened, of which the cork struck the ceiling and left a mark there. To compensate for this mishap, the famous painter ordered a ladder to be brought in, and hurriedly, but with consummate art, painted a swallow where the cork had struck. Years passed, and still the swallow remained fresh. The form and colour of the bird were renewed from time to time by other painters; but to the sight-seer, as informed by the waiters of the café, it was always the very swallow that had been painted in the midst of a champagne luncheon by Carle Vernet. It was as clear and bright as ever when at last it disappeared with the ceiling it had so long adorned.
Close to the Café Foy stood the Café des Aveugles, with an orchestra of blind men as its distinctive feature. It seems at that period to have been thought strange that blind men should be able to perform on musical instruments. In the present day no virtuoso of any pretension plays with notes; though those, no doubt, are the least blind who do not pride themselves on disregarding what may well be a valuable, if not indispensable, aid to memory. A traditional figure associated with the orchestra of blind musicians was a so-called “savage”: some personage, that is to say, from one of the Paris faubourgs, disguised with feathers, paint, and tattooing.
After the Revolution the cafés became more and more political. Under the Republic, as in a less degree under the Empire, there had been no opposition cafés. But with the Restoration some freedom of thought returned. Imperialism had its head-quarters at the Café Leinblin, where the officers of the Grande Armée exchanged ideas on the subject of the humiliations undergone by France now that the great Napoleon was an exile, and that power was vested in the hands, not of a military dictator, but of a mere Parliament, with a constitutional king as figure-head. At the Café Foy congregated the Liberals of the new régime; at the Café Valois came together the Royalists, who believed in nothing but the throne and the altar as maintained under the ancient monarchy.
The café, in spite of the number of new clubs established in Paris, continues to be one of the most popular and most flourishing institutions of the French capital. Numbers of Parisians are not rich enough to belong to clubs, but can well afford from day to day the expenditure of fivepence or sixpence on a cup of coffee and a petit verre.
Of Bohemian cafés – those frequented, that is to say, by the gipsies of literature and art – the most celebrated is, or was in the time of Henri Murger, the brilliant author of “La Vie de Bohême,” the Café Momus. Here it was that poets, painters, and musicians of the future, blessed for the present with more genius than halfpence, waited until some comparatively wealthy lover of art and literature came to their relief, or until, by their noisy and reckless talk, they forced the alarmed proprietor to beg them to retire, and come in some other day to pay for their refreshment. Champfleury, gleaning here and there after Murger’s abundant harvest, has told us how, armed with one cup of coffee and a small glass of brandy, half-a-dozen Bohemians would take absolute possession of the first floor of this establishment.
Sometimes a Bohemian, not absolutely destitute, would order a cup of coffee and petit verre, and go upstairs. Soon afterwards a second Bohemian would come in, ask if the first Bohemian were in the café, and go upstairs to join him. A third would ask for the second, a fourth for the third, and so on, until around the solitary cup of coffee and the unique glass of liqueur a party of six had assembled. The proud paymaster, after sipping a little of the coffee, would pass it to a friend, who, having helped himself, would hand the remainder to some other member of the party. The cognac was in like manner shared, and the last served came in for the sugar, with which he would sweeten a glass of water. The Bohemian frequenters of the Café Momus were more liberal in giving their orders when one of them had sold a picture or a piece of music, a book or a play; and they would afterwards order on credit as long as credit could be obtained. A story is told of one Bohemian who persisted in ordering after his credit had been stopped, and who, having told the waiter repeatedly, but in vain, to bring him a cup of coffee, went himself to the counter, and said in a stern voice, “I have ordered a cup of coffee half-a-dozen times; either serve it at once or lend me five sous, and I’ll go and get it elsewhere.”
It must be supposed that it somehow suited the proprietor of the Café Momus to encourage, or at least tolerate, his Bohemian visitors; otherwise he would have taken steps to exclude them permanently. Occasionally, it is said, they would barricade themselves in their favourite room on the first floor, and refuse absolutely to give up possession. The probability is that when they were in funds they spent their money lavishly; and they undoubtedly gave a certain reputation to the Café Momus, which became known throughout Paris as the café of literary aspirants, and attracted on that ground a certain number of sympathisers and admirers.
The house formerly occupied by the Frascati establishment bears on the Rue Richelieu side a medallion with an inscription to the memory of Cardinal de Richelieu, put up by Antoine Elwart, professor of composition at the Conservatoire. The other side of the Boulevard Montmartre, whence springs the Rue du Faubourg Montmartre, is no less animated than the theatre side. Here, too, cafés abound, each of which, in theatrical phrase, is “full to overflowing”; for numbers of customers sit out in the street at the little tables in front of the café. The arcade on this side of the boulevard is known as the Passage Jouffroi. It runs through what was once the ground-floor of the house which, under the Restoration, was inhabited by three distinguished composers: Rossini, Carafa, and Boieldieu. A little further on, always in the direction of the Madeleine, stands an important club, called officially Le Grand Cercle, familiarly, Le Cercle des Ganaches. It is composed chiefly of commercial men and civil servants. It is considered old-fashioned, and the dinner-hour there is six o’clock, as it was in most Paris houses fifty years ago.
At the right corner of the Rue Grange Batelière stands an immense house, on a site occupied, until a few years ago, by the mansion built in the eighteenth century, by two well-known farmers-general, the Brothers Lunge, which from 1836 to 1847 was the haunt of the Jockey Club, the best-known and most fashionable club in Paris, now installed further to the west, but still in the line of boulevards.
Ask any Parisian in the present day for “the house of Molière,” and he will tell you that La Maison de Molière is only another name for the Théâtre Français. The house, however, where Molière lived is situated at the corner of a little street off the Boulevard Montmartre; and here it was that he breathed his last.
On the 10th of February, 1673, the “Malade Imaginaire” was performed for the first time. The curtain rose at four o’clock, and a few minutes afterwards Molière was on the stage, and acting with his accustomed humour. Everyone was laughing and applauding. None of the audience suspected that the actor who was throwing all his energy into the part he had himself created was now on the point of death. In the burlesque ceremony, just as Argan has to utter the word “Juro,” a convulsion seized him, which he disguised beneath a forced laugh. But it was now necessary to carry him home. The performance went on, though without Molière, who meanwhile had been taken to his house in the Rue Richelieu. It had been found impossible to get his clothes off. The dying man was still wearing the dressing-gown of the “Imaginary Invalid.” He was presently attacked with a violent fit of coughing, in the course of which he burst a blood-vessel and threw up a quantity of blood. A few minutes later he expired, surrounded by the members of his family, and supported by two nuns to whom he was in the habit of offering hospitality when they visited Paris. In his dying moments he had asked for religious consolation; but the priest of St. – Eustache rejected his prayer. Now that he was dead, Christian burial was denied to him: a piece of intolerance due to the Archbishop of Paris, Harley de Champvalon. So soon as Molière’s wife heard of the archbishop’s refusal, she exclaimed with indignation: “They refuse to bury a man to whom, in Greece, altars would have been erected.” Then calling for a carriage, and taking with her the Curé of Auteuil, who was far from sharing the views of his ecclesiastical superior, she hurried to Versailles, threw herself at the king’s feet, and demanded justice. “If,” she exclaimed, losing all self-control – “if my husband was a criminal, his crimes were sanctioned by your Majesty in person.” At these words the king frowned, and the Curé of Auteuil is said to have found the moment opportune for introducing a theological discussion, in the course of which he sought to disculpate himself from an accusation of Jansenism. But Louis XIV. had been affronted, and he told both actress and curé that the matter concerned the archbishop alone. He sent secret orders, however, to the churlish prelate, the result of which was a compromise. The body was refused entrance into the church, but two priests were allowed to accompany it to the cemetery. The archbishop’s concession seemed to some bigots out of place: a proof that the ecclesiastical authorities were not alone in their wish to have Molière interred without Christian rites. They could not now prevent his being buried in sacred ground. But on the day of his funeral they organised a riot in front of his house, which Mme. Molière, frightened by the cries and menaces of the crowd, could only appease by throwing money out of the window, to the amount of about a thousand francs. It was on the 21st of February, 1673, that the remains of the great man were borne to their resting-place, without pomp, without ceremony, at night, and almost furtively, as though he had been a criminal. Molière was buried in the Cemetery of Saint Joseph, Rue Montmartre. His widow placed above the grave a great slab of stone, which was still to be seen in the early part of the eighteenth century, when the brothers Parfait published their Histoire du Théâtre Français. “This stone,” writes M. du Tillet, “is cracked down the middle: which was caused by a very noble and very remarkable action on the part of the widow. Two or three years after Molière’s death a very cold winter set in, and she had a hundred loads of wood conveyed to the cemetery, and burned on the tomb of her husband, to warm all the poor people of the quarter, when the great heat of the fire caused the stone to split in two.”
The Church of Rome has pronounced again and again at councils, and through the mouths of distinguished prelates, against the abomination that maketh not “desolate,” but joyful. In the fifth century it excommunicated stage-players, and the order of excommunication, though practically it may have ceased to be effective, has never been rescinded. In France up to the time of the Restoration (1814), or at least during the Restoration, it was in full force, so that the history of the relations between Church and stage in that theatre-loving country has been the history of the refusal of Christian burial in successive centuries to stage-players. Happily, for many years past theory and practice have been at variance in France with regard to the excommunicated position of actors and actresses. The Church, however much it may stand above society, cannot but reflect in some measure the views of society at large; and, if only from policy, it cannot permit itself to outrage a universal feeling. Accordingly, since the doors of Saint-Roch were closed, in 1817, against the body of the famous actress, Mlle. Raucourt – an incident which was followed by a popular outbreak, the calling out of the troops, and ultimately interference on the part of Louis XVIII., who ordered that the religious service should be performed by his own chaplain: since those days there have been few examples in France, and none in Paris, of any actor or actress being treated as beyond the pale of the Church.
To be seen in all its glory, the Boulevard Montmartre – perhaps the most crowded of all the boulevards, especially by business people – should be traversed at the beginning of the New Year, when in the booths which line the great thoroughfare nearly along its whole length all kinds of objects supposed to be suitable as New Year’s gifts are offered for sale.
In England, the custom of making Christmas presents and New Year’s gifts had, except among relatives, died out, when a few years ago some apparently childish, but in reality very ingenious, person invented Christmas cards. The invention was not successful at first; and the strange practice of exchanging pieces of cardboard adorned with commonplace pictorial designs, and inscribed with conventional expressions of goodwill, was, for a time, confined to the sort of persons who might be suspected of sending valentines. Eventually, however, it spread. The initiative in this matter seems to have been taken by enterprising young ladies, whose attentions it was impossible to leave unrecognised; and endeavours were naturally made to return them cards of superior value to those which they had themselves despatched. Thus a noble spirit of emulation was generated, which the designers, manufacturers, and vendors of Christmas cards did their best to gratify and stimulate; so that, latterly, there has been a marked rise in these products as regards price, and even quality. Many of them possess undeniable artistic merit, and during the last few years some very beautiful varieties of the Christmas card have been brought out at Paris. These pictorial adaptations from the English are at least more graceful and more original than the great majority of our own dramatic adaptations from the French.
If, as everyone knows, the sending of Christmas cards is a custom of but a few years’ standing, New Year’s gifts are by no means of recent invention; and under the Roman Empire, as now in Russia, presents used, as a matter of course, to be made on the first day of the New Year to the magistrates and high officials. In the end, the practice of making New Year’s gifts grew so popular that every Roman at the opening of a new year presented the reigning emperor with a certain amount of money, proportionate to his means; and what had, in the first instance, been among ordinary individuals but a token of esteem, was now, in regard to the sovereign, an assurance of loyalty, besides being a tolerable source of income. The barbaric nations, with simpler habits, had simpler ceremonies in connection with the New Year; and the Gauls were content to present one another at this season with sprigs of mistletoe plucked from the sacred groves.
Coming to much more recent times, we find the custom of giving New Year’s presents in full force at the Court of Louis XIV., when, on the 1st of January, ladies received tokens from their lovers, and gave tokens in return.
The custom of making New Year’s gifts became at length so general that servants murmured if their masters neglected them in this respect; and an amusing story is told of the stingy Cardinal Dubois, who, on his major-domo asking for his étrennes, replied, “Well, you may keep what you have stolen from me during the last twelvemonth.” This, however, occurred a long time ago; and had the cardinal lived in the present century, he would scarcely have dared to make such an answer. The Frenchman who nowadays ventures to refuse to his servants, or to any other dependants, the expected annual gifts must be prepared to bear the bitterest sarcasm, which will possibly not cease to assail him even beyond the grave; for it may be his fate to have inscribed on his tomb some such epitaph as the following quite authentic one: —
“Ci-gît, dessous ce marbre blanc,
L’homme le plus avare de Rennes;
S’il est mort la veille de l’an
C’est pour ne pas donner d’étrennes,”
which may be roughly rendered in English thus: —
“Here lies, beneath this marble white,
The miserliest man in Rennes;
If New Year’s Eve he chose for flight,
‘Twas that he need not give étrennes.”
Towards the end of the eighteenth century an edict was published in France forbidding New Year’s gifts; but without avail. The étrennes only became more numerous and more costly as the greed of the recipients grew more and more insatiable; and in the present day the meaning of the word étrenne will be only too well understood by any Englishman who, in Paris at the time of the New Year, may venture to have dealings with the waiters at the cafés, with hair-dressers, drivers, or any other set of men who delight in certain traditional customs.
