Part 7

The old coffee-houses were not simply resorts for the critics, the politicians, and the fine gentlemen. Gay, writing to Congreve, in 1715, says, “Amidst clouds of tobacco, at a coffee-house, I write this letter. There is a grand revolution at Will’s. Moira has quitted for a coffee-house in the City; and Titcomb is restored, to the great joy of Cromwell, who was at a great loss for a person to converse with upon the Fathers and church history. The knowledge I gain from him is entirely in painting and poetry; and Mr. Pope owes all his skill in astronomy to him and Mr. Whiston.” Pope learnt his astronomy by the assistance of what Moore calls, “the sun of the table;” for, adding a postscript to Gay’s letter to Congreve, he says, “I sit up till two o’clock, over Burgundy and Champagne.” Ten years before, the coffee-house and London life had less charms for him. Witness the paragraph in the letter to Wycherley, in 1705, to this effect: “I have now changed the scene from town to country,--from Will’s Coffee-house to Windsor Forest. I found no other difference than this betwixt the common town wits and the downright country fools,--that the first are partly in the wrong, with a little more flourish and gaiety; and the last, neither in the right nor the wrong, but confirmed in a stupid settled medium, betwixt both.” But, ten years later than the period of Pope’s postscript to Congreve, in which he boasted of sitting over wine during the “wee short hours ayont the twal’,” as Burns calls them, we find the boaster stricken. Swift, writing to him, in 1726, remarks, “I always apprehend most for you after a great dinner; for the least transgression of yours, if it be only two bits and one sup more than your stint, is a great debauch, for which you certainly pay more than those sots who are carried drunk to bed.”

In England, the chocolate and coffee-houses were not confined to the metropolis and its rather rakish inhabitants. The Universities had their coffee-houses, as London had; and the company there, albeit _alumni_ of the various Colleges, do not appear to have been remarkable for refinement. Dr. Ewins, at Cambridge, in the last century, acquired the ill-will both of Town and Gown for exercising a sort of censorship over their conduct. According to Cole, the Antiquary, they needed it; for he says, with especial allusion to the Undergraduates, that “they never were more licentious, riotous, and debauched. They often broke the Doctor’s windows,” he adds, “as they said he had been caught listening on their staircases and (at their) doors.” The Doctor, like his adversaries, was in the habit of visiting the Union Coffee-house, opposite St. Radigund’s (or Jesus) lane,--a fashionable rendezvous. He was there one night about Christmas, 1771, or January, 1772, “when some Fellow-Commoners, who owed him a grudge, sitting in the box near him, in order to affront him, pretended to call their dog ‘Squintum,’ and frequently repeated the name very loudly in the coffee-house; and, in their joviality, swore many oaths, and caressed their dog. Dr. Ewin, as did his father, squinted very much, as did Whitefield, the Methodist teacher, who was vulgarly called Dr. Squintum, from the blemish in his eyes. Dr. Ewin was sufficiently mortified to be so affronted in public. However, he carefully marked down the number of oaths sworn by these gentlemen, whom he made to pay severely the penalty of five shillings for each oath, which amounted to a good round sum.” The next week, ballad-singers sang, in the streets of Cambridge, a ballad, which they gave away to all who would accept a copy, and from which the following verses are extracted. They will show--if nothing else--that the University coffee-house poet was less elegant than Horace, and that the “well of English” into which he had dipped was not altogether “undefiled:”--

“Of all the blockheads in the Town, That strut and bully up and down, And bring complaints against the Gown, There’s none like Dr. Squintum.

“With gimlet eyes and dapper wig, This Justice thinks he looks so big: A most infernal stupid gig Is this same Dr. Squintum.

“What pedlar can forbear to grin, Before his Worship that has been, To think what folly lurks within This Just Ass Dr. Squintum?”

Old René d’Anjou used to say, that, as soon as a man had breakfasted, it was his bounden duty to devote himself to the great business of the day,--think of dinner. We will in some wise follow the instructions given,--first, however, saying a word or two upon French coffee-houses, and then upon those who naturally take precedence of “dinners,”--the cooks by whom dinners are prepared.

THE FRENCH CAFÉS.

In the reign of Louis XV. there were not less than six hundred _cafés_ in Paris. London, at the same period, could not count as many dozens. Under Louis Napoleon, the _cafés_ have reached to the amazing number of between three and four thousand. All these establishments acknowledge the _Café Procope_ as the founder of the dynasty, although, indeed, there were coffee-vendors in Paris before the time of the accomplished Sicilian. “_Vixerunt fortes ante Agamemnona._”

The consumption of coffee in Paris, at the period of the breaking out of the Revolution, was something enormous. The French West-Indian Islands furnished eighty millions of pounds annually, and this was irrespective of what was derived from the East. The two sources together were not sufficient to supply the kingdom. Thence adulterations, fortunes to the adulterators, and that supremacy of chicory, which has destroyed the well-earned reputation of French coffee.

I have already spoken of the _Café Procope_, and here I will only add an anecdote illustrative of the scenes that sometimes occurred there, and of the national character generally in the reign of Louis XV. One afternoon that M. de Saint Foix was seated at his usual table, 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, and again and again declared, that nothing the gallant officer could say to the contrary, would convince him that a cup of coffee, with milk, and a roll, was _not_ a confoundedly poor dinner. Thereupon a challenge was given and accepted, and the whole of the persons present adjourned as spectators of a fight, 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 principals 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 the gallant officer, who, I doubt not, is an honourable man; but Your Excellency can never prevent my asserting, 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,” remarked Saint Foix; “and a cup of coffee,”----at these words Magistrates, delinquents, and auditory, burst into a roar of laughter, and the antagonists became friends. It was a more bloodless issue than that which occurred to Michel Lepelletier, in later years, at the _Café Février_. He was seated at dinner there, when an _ex-garde-du-corps_, named Paris, approached him, inquired if he were the Lepelletier who had voted for the death of Louis XVI., and, receiving an affirmative reply, drew forth a dagger, and swiftly slew him on the spot.

Before Procope, the Armenian, Pascal, sold coffee at the Fair of St. Germain, at three-halfpence a cup; and the beverage was sung by the poet Thomas in terms not exactly like those with which Delille subsequently sang the virtues of the tree. The French coffee-houses at once gained the popularity to which they aspired. To Pascal succeeded Maliban, and then Gregoire opened his establishment in the Rue Mazarin, in the vicinity of players and play-goers. At the same time, there was a man in Paris, called “the lame Candiot,” who carried ready-made coffee about from door to door, and sold it for a penny per cup, sugar included. The _café_ at the foot of the bridge of Notre-Dame was founded by Joseph; that at the foot of the bridge of St. Michel, by Etienne; and both of these are more ancient than that of Procope, who was the first, however, who made a fortune by his speculation. The _Quai de l’Ecole_ had its establishment, (the _Café Manoury_,) which I believe still exists, as does the _Café de la Régence_, which dates from the time of the Regent Duke of Orleans, and where Rousseau used to play at chess, and appear in his Armenian costume. It was also frequented, _incog._, by the Emperor Joseph. The oldest _café_ in the Palais Royal is the celebrated _Café de Foy_, so called from the name of its founder. Carl Vernet was one of its most constant patrons. He was there on one occasion, when some repairs were going on, and, in his impatience, he flung a wet colouring brush from him, which struck the ceiling and left a spot. He immediately ascended the ladder, and with a touch of his finger converted the stain into a swallow; and his handywork was still to be seen on the ceiling, when I was last in Paris. It was before the _Café de Foy_ that Camille Desmoulins harangued the mob, in July, 1789, with such effect, that they took up arms, destroyed the Bastille, and inaugurated the Revolution.

The _Café de Valois_ will long be remembered for its aristocratic character; that of Montansier, on the other hand, was remarkable for the coarseness of its frequenters, and the violence with which they discussed politics, especially at the period of the Restoration. The _Café du Caveau_ was more joyously noisy with its gay artists and broad songs. The Empire brought two establishments into popular favour, both of which appealed to the lovers of beauty as well as of coffee. The first was the _Café du Bosquet_, and the second the _Café des Mille Colonnes_. Each was celebrated for the magnificent attractions of the presiding lady,--the _belle limonadière_, as she was at first called, or the _dame du comptoir_, as refinement chose to name her. Madame Romain, at the _Mille Colonnes_, had a longer reign than her rival; and the lady was altogether a more remarkable person. In the reign of Louis XVIII., her seat was composed of the throne of Jerome, King of Westphalia,--which was sold by auction on the bankruptcy of his Majesty. Madame Romain descended from it, like a weary Queen, to take refuge in a nunnery; and, curiously enough, the ex-King has recovered his “throne,” which now figures, in the reduced aspect of a simple arm-chair, in the _salon_ of his residence at the Palais Royal. After the abdication of Madame Romain, the _Mille Colonnes_ endeavoured to secure success by very meretricious means. Girls of a brazen quality of beauty bore through the apartments flaming bowls of punch, usually taken after the coffee; and the beverage and the bearers were equally bad.

As the _Café Chrêtien_ was once thoroughly Jacobin, so the _Café Lemblin_ became entirely Imperial, and was the focus of the Opposition after the return of the Bourbons. It was famous for its chocolate, as well as for its coffee. When the Allies were at Paris, it was hardly safe for the officers to enter the _Café Lemblin_, and many scenes of violence are described as having occurred there, and many a duel was fought with fatal effect, after a _café_ dispute between French and foreign officers,--and all for national honour. The Bourbon officers were far more insulting in the _cafés_ to the ex-imperial “braves,” than the latter were to the invading Captains,--and they generally paid dearly for their temerity. Finally,--for to name all the _cafés_ in Paris, would require an encyclopædia,--it is worthy of notice that Tortoni’s, which is now a grave adjunct to the _Bourse_, first achieved success by the opposite process of billiard-playing. A broken-down provincial advocate, Spolar of Rennes, came to Paris with a bad character, and a capital cue; and the latter he handled so wonderfully at the _Café Tortoni_, that all Paris went to witness his feats. Talleyrand patronized him, backed his playing, and gained no inconsiderable sum by the cue-driving of Spolar, whose star culminated when he was appointed “Professor of Billiards to Queen Hortense,”--an appointment which sounds strange, but which was thought natural enough at the time; and, considering all things, so it was.

There is one feature in the French _cafés_ which strikes an observer as he first contemplates it. I allude to the intensity, gravity, and extent of the domino-playing. A quartett party will spend half the evening at this mystery, with nothing to enliven it but the gentlest of conversation, and the lightest of beer, or a simple _petit verre_. The Government wisely thinks that a grave domino-player can be given to neither immorality nor conspiracies. But a British Government proudly scorns to tolerate such insipidities in Britons. British tradesmen, at the end of the day, may be perfectly idle, spout blasphemy, and get as drunk as they please, in any London tavern, provided they do not therewith break the peace; _but_, let the reprobates only remain obstinately sober, and play at dominoes, then they offend the immaculate justice of Justices, and landlords and players are liable to be fined. So, on Sabbath nights, the working-classes have thrown open to their edification the gin-palaces, which invite not in vain; but if one of these same classes should, on the same Sunday evening, knock at the religiously-closed door of a so-called free library, the secretary’s maid who answers the appeal would be pale with horror at the atrocity of the applicant. And what is the bewildered Briton to do? He looks in at church, where, if there be a few free seats, they have a look about them so as to make him understand that he is in his fustian, and that he and the miserable sinners in their fine cloth are not on an equality in the house of God; and so he turns sighingly away, and goes where the law allows him,--to the house of gin.

But, leaving the further consideration of these matters to my readers, let us now address ourselves to the sketching of a class whose most illustrious members have borne witness to their own excellency, not exactly according to the fashion spoken of by Shakspeare; namely, by putting a strange face on their own perfection.

THE ANCIENT COOK, AND HIS ART.

It is an incontestable fact, that he who lives soberly does not depend upon his cook for the pleasure which he derives from his repast. Nevertheless, the cook is one of the most important of personages; and even appetite, without him, would not be of the value that it is at present. A great _artiste_ knows his vocation. When the cook of Louis XVIII. was reproached, by His Majesty’s Physician, with ruining the royal health by savoury juices, the dignitary of the kitchen sententiously remarked, that it was the office of the cook to supply His Majesty with pleasant dishes, and that it was the duty of the doctor to enable the King to digest them. The division of labour, and the responsibilities of office, could not have been better defined.

From old times the cook has had a proper sense of the solemn importance of his wonderful art. The _Coquus Gloriosus_, in a fragment of Philemon, shows us what these artists were in the very olden time. He swears by Minerva that he is delighted at his success, and that he cooked a fish so exquisitely, that it returned him admiring and grateful looks from the frying-pan! He had not covered it with grated cheese, not disguised it with sauce; but he had treated it with such daintiness and delicacy, that, even when fully cooked, it lay on the dish as fresh-looking as if it had just been taken from the lake. This result seems to have been a rarity; for, when the fish was served up at table, the delighted guests tore it from one another, and a running struggle was kept up around the board to get possession of this exquisitely prepared _morceau_. “And yet,” says the cook, “I had nothing better to exhibit my talent upon than a wretched river fish, nourished in mud. But, O Jupiter Saviour! if I had only had at my disposal some of the fish of Attica or Argos, or a conger from pleasant Sicyon, like those which Neptune serves to the gods in Olympus, why, the guests would have thought they had become divinities themselves. Yes,” adds the culinary boaster, “I think I may say that I have discovered the principle of immortality, and that the odour of my dishes would recall life into the nostrils of the very dead.” The resonant vaunt is not unlike that of Béchamel, who said that, with the sauce that he had invented, a man would experience nothing but delight in eating his own grandfather!

Hegesippus further illustrates the vanity of the _genus coquorum_ of _his_ days. In a dialogue between Syrus and his chef, the master declares that the culinary art appears to have reached its limit, and that he would fain hear something novel upon the subject. The cook’s reply admits us to an insight into ancient manners. “I am not one of those fellows,” says the personage in question, “who are content to suppose that they learn their art by wearing an apron for a couple of years. My study of the art has not been superficial: it has been the work of my life; and I have learned the use and appliances of every herb that grows--for kitchen purposes. But I especially shine in getting up funeral dinners. When the mourners have returned from the doleful ceremony, it is I who introduce them to the mitigated affliction department. While they are yet in their mourning attire, I lift the lids of my kettles, and straightway the weepers begin to laugh. They sit down with their senses so enchanted, that every guest fancies himself at a wedding. If I can only have all I require, Syrus,” adds the artist, “if my kitchen be only properly furnished, you will see renewed the scenes which used to take place on the coasts frequented by the Syrens. It will be impossible for any one to pass the door; all who scent the process will be compelled, despite themselves, to stop. There they will stand, mute, open-mouthed, and nostrils extended; nor will it be possible to make them ‘move on,’ unless the police, coming to their aid, shut out the irresistible scent by plugging their noses.”

Posidippus shows us a classical master-cook instructing his pupils. Leucon is the name of the teacher; and the first truth he impresses on his young friend is, that the most precious sauce for the purpose of a cook is impudence. “Boast away,” he says, “and never be tired of it.” For, as he logically remarks, “if there be many a Captain under whose dragon-embossed cuirass lies a poor hare, why should not we, who kill hares, pass for better than we are, like the Captains?” “A modest cook must be looked on,” he says, “as a contradiction in nature. If he be hired out to cook a dinner in another man’s house, he will only get considered in proportion to his impudence and overbearing conduct. If he be quiet and modest, he will be held as a pitiful cook.”

Alexis, another artist, takes other and higher ground. He says, that in all the arts the resulting pleasure does not depend solely on those who exercise the art; there must be others who possess the science of enjoyment. This is true; and Alexis further adds, that the guest who keeps a dinner waiting, or a master who suddenly demands it before its time, are alike enemies to the art which Alexis professes.

The earthly paradise of the early cooks was, unquestionably, among the Sybarites,--the people to whom the crumpling of a rose under the side on which they lay, gave exquisite pain. They were as self-luxurious as though the world was made for them alone, and they and the world were intended to last for ever. They would not admit into their city any persons whose professions entailed noise in the practice of them: the trunkmaker at the corner of St. Paul’s would have been flogged to death with thistle-down, if he had carried on his trade in Sybaris for an hour, and if a Sybarite could have been found with energy enough to wield the instrument of execution! The crowing of one of the proscribed race of cocks once put all the gentlemen of the city into fits; and, on another occasion, a Sybarite telling a friend how his nerves had been shaken by hearing the tools of some labouring men in another country strike against each other, at their work, the friend was so overcome, that he merely exclaimed, “Good gracious!” and fainted away.

Athenæus, borrowing, if I remember rightly, from one of the authors whose works were in that Alexandrian library, the destruction of which by the Caliph Omar, Dr. Cumming tells us in his “Finger of God,” is a circumstance at which he is rather glad than sorry,--Athenæus mentions the visit of a Sybarite to Sparta, where he was invited to one of the public dinners, at which the citizens ate very black broth, in common, out of wooden bowls. Having tasted the national diet, he feebly uttered the Sybaritic expression for “Stap my vitals!” and convulsively remarked, that “he no longer wondered why the Lacedæmonians sought death in battle, seeing that such a fate was preferable to life with such broth!”

Certainly the public repasts of the Sybarites were of another quality. The giver of such repasts was enrolled among the benefactors of their country, and the cook who had distinguished himself was invested with a golden crown, and an opera ticket; that is, free admission to those public games where hired dancers voluptuously perverted time and the human form divine.

I am afraid that all cooks in remote ages enjoyed but an indifferent reputation, and thoroughly deserved what they enjoyed. The comic Dionysius introduces one of the succulent brotherhood, impressing upon a young apprentice the propriety of stealing in houses where they were hired to cook dinners. The instruction is worthy of Professor Fagan of the Saffron-Hill University. “Whatever you can prig,” says the elder rogue, “belongs to yourself, as long as you are in the house. When you get past the porter into the street, it then becomes _my_ property. So fake away! (Βάδιζε δεῦρ’ ἅμα,) and look out for unconnected trifles.”

And yet Athenæus asserts that nothing has so powerfully contributed to instil piety into the souls of men, as good cookery! His proof is, that when men devoured each other, they were beasts,--which is a self-evident proposition; but that when they took to cooked meats, and were particular with regard to these, why, then alone they began to live cleanly,--which is a proposition by no means so self-evident. In his opinion, a man to be supremely happy only needed the gift of Ceres to Pandora,--a good appetite, and an irreproachable indigestion. These are, doubtless, great portions of happiness; and if felicity can do without them,--which is questionable,--where they are not, comfort is absent, and a good conscience is hardly a sufficient compensation.