All About Coffee Part 21

These were senates in miniature; here mighty political questions were discussed; here peace and war were decided upon; here generals were brought to the bar of justice ... distinguished orators were victoriously refuted, ministers heckled upon their ignorance, their incapacity, their perfidy, their corruption. The cafe is in reality a French inst.i.tution; in them we find all these agitations and movements of men, the like of which is unknown in the English tavern. No government can go against the sentiment of the cafes.

The Revolution took place because they were for the Revolution.

Napoleon reigned because they were for glory. The Restoration was shattered, because they understood the Charter in a different manner.

In 1700 appeared the _Portefeuille Galant_, containing conversations of the cafes.

_The Cafes in the French Revolution_

The Palais Royal coffee houses were centers of activity in the days preceding and following the Revolution. A picture of them in the July days of 1789 has been left by Arthur Young, who was visiting Paris at that time:

The coffee houses present yet more singular and astounding spectacles; they are not only crowded within, but other expectant crowds are at the doors and windows, listening _a gorge deployee_ to certain orators who from chairs or tables harangue each his little audience; the eagerness with which they are heard, and the thunder of applause they receive for every sentiment of more than common hardiness or violence against the government, cannot easily be imagined.

The Palais Royal teemed with excited Frenchmen on the fateful Sunday of July 12, 1789. The moment was a tense one, when, coming out of the Cafe Foy, Camille Desmoulins, a youthful journalist, mounted a table and began the harangue that precipitated the first overt act of the French Revolution. Blazing with a white hot frenzy, he so played upon the pa.s.sions of the mob that at the conclusion of his speech he and his followers "marched away from the Cafe on their errand of Revolution."

The Bastille fell two days later.

As if abashed by its reputation as the starting point of the mob spirit of the Revolution, Cafe Foy became in after years a sedate gathering-place of artists and literati. Up to its close it was distinguished among other famous Parisian cafes for its exclusiveness and strictly enforced rule of "no smoking."

Even from the first the Parisian cafes catered to all cla.s.ses of society; and, unlike the London coffee houses, they retained this distinctive characteristic. A number of them early added other liquid and substantial refreshments, many becoming out-and-out restaurants.

_Coffee-House Customs and Patrons_

Coffee's effect on Parisians is thus described by a writer of the latter part of the eighteenth century:

I think I may safely a.s.sert that it is to the establishment of so many cafes in Paris that is due the urbanity and mildness discernible upon most faces. Before they existed, nearly everybody pa.s.sed his time at the cabaret, where even business matters were discussed. Since their establishment, people a.s.semble to hear what is going on, drinking and playing only in moderation, and the consequence is that they are more civil and polite, at least in appearance.

Montesquieu's satirical pen pictured in his _Persian Letters_ the earliest cafes as follows:

In some of these houses they talk news; in others, they play draughts. There is one where they prepare the coffee in such a manner that it inspires the drinkers of it with wit; at least, of all those who frequent it, there is not one person in four who does not think he has more wit after he has entered that house. But what offends me in these wits is that they do not make themselves useful to their country.

Montesquieu encountered a geometrician outside a coffee house on the Pont Neuf, and accompanied him inside. He describes the incident in this manner:

I observe that our geometrician was received there with the utmost officiousness, and that the coffee house boys paid him much more respect than two musqueteers who were in a corner of the room. As for him, he seemed as if he thought himself in an agreeable place; for he unwrinkled his brows a little and laughed, as if he had not the least tincture of geometrician in him.... He was offended at every start of wit, as a tender eye is by too strong a light.... At last I saw an old man enter, pale and thin, whom I knew to be a coffee house politician before he sat down; he was not one of those who are never to be intimidated by disasters, but always prophesy of victories and success; he was one of those timorous wretches who are always boding ill.

Cafe Momus and Cafe Rotonde figure conspicuously in the record of French bohemianism. The Momus stood near the right bank of the River Seine in rue des Pretres St.-Germain, and was known as the home of the bohemians.

The Rotonde stood on the left bank at the corner of the rue de l'ecole de Medecine and the rue Hautefeuille.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CAFe DE PARIS IN 1843

From an engraving by Bosredon]

Alexandre Schanne has given us a glimpse of bohemian life in the early cafes. He lays his scene in the Cafe Rotonde, and tells how a number of poor students were wont to make one cup of coffee last the coterie a full evening by using it to flavor and to color the one gla.s.s of water shared in common. He says:

Every evening, the first comer at the waiter's inquiry, "What will you take, sir?" never failed to reply, "Nothing just at present, I am waiting for a friend." The friend arrived, to be a.s.sailed by the brutal question, "Have you any money?" He would make a despairing gesture in the negative, and then add, loud enough to be heard by the _dame du comptoir_, "By Jove, no; only fancy, I left my purse on my console-table, with gilt feet, in the purest Louis XV style.

Ah! what a thing it is to be forgetful." He would sit down, and the waiter would wipe the table as if he had something to do. A third would come, who was sometimes able to reply, "Yes. I have ten sous." "Good!" we would reply; "order a cup of coffee, a gla.s.s and a water bottle; pay and give two sous to the waiter to secure his silence." This would be done. Others would come and take their places beside us, repeating to the waiter the same chorus, "We are with this gentleman." Frequently we would be eight or nine sitting at the same table, and only one customer. Whilst smoking and reading the papers we would, however, pa.s.s the gla.s.s and bottle.

When the water began to run short, as on a s.h.i.+p in distress, one of us would have the impudence to call out, "Waiter, some water!" The master of the establishment, who understood our situation, had no doubt given orders for us to be left alone, and made his fortune without our help. He was a good fellow and an intelligent one, having subscribed to all the scientific journals of Europe, which brought him the custom of foreign students.

Another cafe perpetuating the best traditions of the Latin Quarter was the Vachette, which survived until the death of Jean Moreas in 1911. The Vachette is usually cited by antiquarians as a model of circ.u.mspection as compared with the scores of cafes in the Quarter that were given up to debaucheries. One writer puts it: "The Vachette traditions leaned more to scholars.h.i.+p than sensuality."

In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries the Parisian cafe was truly a coffee house; but as many of the patrons began to while away most of their waking hours in them, the proprietors added other beverages and food to hold their patronage. Consequently, we find listed among the cafes of Paris some houses that are more accurately described as restaurants, although they may have started their careers as coffee houses.

_Historic Parisian Cafes_

Some of the historic cafes are still thriving in their original locations, although the majority have now pa.s.sed into oblivion. Glimpses of the more famous houses are to be found in the novels, poetry, and essays written by the French literati who patronized them. These first-hand accounts give insights that are sometimes stirring, often amusing, and frequently revolting--such as the a.s.sa.s.sination of St.-Fargean in Fevrier's low-vaulted cellar cafe in the Palais Royal.

There is Magny's, originally the haunt of such literary men as Gautier, Taine, Saint-Victor, Turguenieff, de Goncourt, Soulie, Renan, Edmond. In recent years the old Magny's was razed, and on its site was built the modern restaurant of the same name, but in a style that has no resemblance to its predecessor. Even the name of the street has been changed, from rue Contrescarpe to the rue Mazet.

Meot's, the Very, Beauvilliers', Ma.s.se's, the Cafe Chartres, the Troi Freres Provencaux, and the du Grand Commun, all situated in the Palais Royal, are cafes that figured conspicuously in the French Revolution, and are closely identified with the French stage and literature. Meot's and Ma.s.se's were the trysting places of the Royalists in the days preceding the outbreak, but welcomed the Revolutionists after they came in power. The Chartres was notorious as the gathering place of young aristocrats who escaped the guillotine, and, thus made bold, often called their like from adjoining cafes to partake in some of their plans for restoration of the empire. The Trois Freres Provencaux, well known for its excellent and costly dinners, is mentioned by Balzac, Lord Lytton, and Alfred de Musset in some of their novels. The Cafe du Grand Commun appears in Rousseau's _Confessions_ in connection with the play _Devin du Village_.

Among the most famous of the cafes on the Rue St. Honore were Venua's, patronized by Robespierre and his companions of the Revolution, and perhaps the scene of the inhuman murder of Berthier and its revolting aftermath; the Mapinot, which has gone down in cafe history as the scene of the banquet to Archibald Alison, the 22-year-old historian; and Voisin's cafe, around which still cling traditions of such literary lights as Zola, Alphonse Daudet, and Jules de Goncourt.

[Ill.u.s.tration: INTERIOR OF A TYPICAL PARISIAN CAFe OF THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY]

Perhaps the boulevard des Italiens had, and still has, more fas.h.i.+onable cafes than any other section of the French capital. The Tortoni, opened in the early days of the Empire by Velloni, an Italian lemonade vender, was the most popular of the boulevard cafes, and was generally thronged with fas.h.i.+onables from all parts of Europe. Here Louis Blanc, historian of the Revolution, spent many hours in the early days of his fame.

Talleyrand; Rossini, the musician; Alfred Stevens and Edouard Manet, artists, are some of the names still linked with the traditions of the Tortoni. Farther down the boulevard were the Cafe Riche, Maison Doree, Cafe Anglais, and the Cafe de Paris. The Riche and the Doree, standing side by side, were both high-priced and noted for their revelries. The Anglais, which came into existence after the snuffing out of the Empire, was also distinguished for its high prices, but in return gave an excellent dinner and fine wines. It is told that even during the siege of Paris the Anglais offered its patrons "such luxuries as a.s.s, mule, peas, fried potatoes, and champagne."

Probably the Cafe de Paris, which came into existence in 1822, in the former home of the Russian Prince Demidoff, was the most richly equipped and elegantly conducted of any cafe in Paris in the nineteenth century.

Alfred de Musset, a frequenter, said, "you could not open its doors for less than 15 francs."

The Cafe Litteraire, opened on boulevard Bonne Nouvelle late in the nineteenth century, made a direct appeal to literary men for patronage, printing this footnote on its menu: "Every customer spending a franc in this establishment is ent.i.tled to one volume of any work to be selected from our vast collection."

The names of Parisian cafes once more or less famous are legion. Some of them are:

The Cafe Laurent, which Rousseau was forced to leave after writing an especially bitter satire; the English cafe in which eccentric Lord Wharton made merry with the Whig habitues; the Dutch cafe, the haunt of Jacobites; Terre's, in the rue Neuve des Pet.i.ts Champs, which Thackeray described in _The Ballad of Bouillabaisse_; Maire's, in the boulevard St.-Denis, which dates back beyond 1850; the Cafe Madrid, in the boulevard Montmartre, of which Carjat, the Spanish lyric poet, was an attraction; the Cafe de la Paix, in the boulevard des Capucines, the resort of Second Empire Imperialists and their spies; the Cafe Durand, in the place de la Madeleine, which started on a plane with the high-priced Riche, and ended its career early in the twentieth century; the Rocher de Cancale, memorable for its feasts and high-living patrons from all over Europe; the Cafe Guerbois, near the rue de St. Petersburg, where Manet, the impressionist, after many vicissitudes, won fame for his paintings and held court for many years; the Chat Noir, on the rue Victor Ma.s.se at Montmartre, a blend of cafe and concert hall, which has since been imitated widely, both in name and feature.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHESS HAS BEEN A FAVORITE PASTIME AT THE CAFe DE LA ReGENCE FOR TWO HUNDRED YEARS.]

CHAPTER XII

INTRODUCTION OF COFFEE INTO NORTH AMERICA

_Captain John Smith, founder of the Colony of Virginia, is the first to bring to North America a knowledge of coffee in 1607--The coffee grinder on the Mayflower--Coffee drinking in 1668--William Penn's coffee purchase in 1683--Coffee in colonial New England--The psychology of the Boston "tea party," and why the United States became a nation of coffee drinkers instead of tea drinkers, like England--The first coffee license to Dorothy Jones in 1670--The first coffee house in New England--Notable coffee houses of old Boston--A skysc.r.a.per coffee house_

Undoubtedly the first to bring a knowledge of coffee to North America was Captain John Smith, who founded the Colony of Virginia at Jamestown in 1607. Captain Smith became familiar with coffee in his travels in Turkey.

Although the Dutch also had early knowledge of coffee, it does not appear that the Dutch West India Company brought any of it to the first permanent settlement on Manhattan Island (1624). Nor is there any record of coffee in the cargo of the Mayflower (1620), although it included a wooden mortar and pestle, later used to make "coffee powder."

In the period when New York was New Amsterdam, and under Dutch occupancy (1624-64), it is possible that coffee may have been imported from Holland, where it was being sold on the Amsterdam market as early as 1640, and where regular supplies of the green bean were being received from Mocha in 1663; but positive proof is lacking. The Dutch appear to have brought tea across the Atlantic from Holland before coffee. The English may have introduced the coffee drink into the New York colony between 1664 and 1673. The earliest reference to coffee in America is 1668[87], at which time a beverage made from the roasted beans, and flavored with sugar or honey, and cinnamon, was being drunk in New York.

Coffee first appears in the official records of the New England colony in 1670. In 1683, the year following William Penn's settlement on the Delaware, we find him buying supplies of coffee in the New York market and paying for them at the rate of eighteen s.h.i.+llings and nine pence per pound.[88]

Coffee houses patterned after the English and Continental prototypes were soon established in all the colonies. Those of New York and Philadelphia are described in separate chapters. The Boston houses are described at the end of this chapter.