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Still like fair Leda's sons, to whom 'twas given
To take their turns in Hades and in Heaven,
Our new Dioscuri would bravely share
The cellar's darkness and the upper air;
Twice every year would each the shades escape
And, like a seabird, seek the wave-washed'Cape,
Where (Rumor voiced) one spouse sufficed for both;
No bigamist, for she upon her oath,
Unskilled in letters, could not make a guess
At any difference 'twixt P. and S.,-
A thing not marvellous, since Fame agrees
They were as little different as two peas,
And she, like Paris, when his Helen laid
Her hand 'mid snows from Ida's top conveyed
To cool their wine of Chios, could not know,
Between those rival candors, which was Snow.
Whiche'er behind the counter chanced to be
Oped oysters oft, his clamshells seldom he;

If e'er he laughed, 'twas with no loud guffaw,
The fun warmed through him with a gradual thaw;
The nicer shades of wit were not his gift,
Nor was it hard to sound Snow's simple drift;
His were plain jokes, that many a time before
Had set his tarry messmates in a roar,
When floundering cod beslimed the deck's wet
planks,-

The humorous specie of Newfoundland banks.

But Snow is gone, and, let us hope, sleeps well
Buried (bis last breath asked it) in a shell;
Him on the Stygian shore my fancy sees
Noting choice shoals for oystery colonies,
Or, at a board stuck full of ghostly forks,
Opening for practise visionary Yorks,
And whither he has gone, may we, too, go-
Since no hot place were fit for keeping Snow!
Jam satis nivis.

(Concluded next month.)

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THE GREAT PARIS CAFÉS.

the cafés and the restaurants owe their origin to the storms of 1789, when, in the raging fever which then maddened the French nation, every one was anxious both in the morning and the evening, to learn the news (news such as the world had never read the like before), and to read the different exponents of the several public men; and to discuss the politics of the day, and to indulge in literary debates; if they owe their origin, we say, to the storms of '89, it was especially under the Empire and the Restoration, that these establishments multiplied, and appeared in the brilliancy and the luxury for which they are now celebrated. The most of them were founded by the chefs de cuisine, or the head cooks (to use our more homely phrase), of the great aristocratic houses, whose names had become extinct in the prison massacres, or on the guillotine, or whose fortunes had been melted in the agrarian crucible of the revolutionary decrees: Beauvilliers had been the chef de cuisine of the Prince de Condé, and his restaurant was chiefly patronized by distinguished persons; the Duke d'Angoulême and M. de Chateaubriand dined there together, more than once, and in the public room. Robert had been the chef de cuisine of M. de Chalandray, an ex-farmer-general: on his return from exile, M. de Chalandray, without more than the shadows of his former fortune, went into Robert's restaurant and recognized his old cook; Robert served his old master a most exquisite dinner

and placed before him his finest wines, and when the bill came, its total was only six francs: the rich cook treated the poor farmer-general. But the cafés and the restaurants of the Empire shared the common grossness of that epoch; drunkenness and gluttony were common vices to all of them, until the Restoration introduced more courtesy, and more of the arts of peace. Our reader is aware that cafés and restaurants are, perhaps, the most characteristic feature of French life; there is nothing which an absent Frenchman more regrets while wandering from home, than the cafés and the restaurants, where his meals were taken, and his idle hours passed away, and his friends encountered, and himself seeing and seen. Besides, being the Temples of Fame of the town, they are the chapels of ease to limited fortunes: their ample porcelain stoves, piled high with plates, their brilliant gas chandeliers, the numerous newspapers, their well-stuffed seats, their excellent attendance, enable those of straitened circumstances to efface from their account-books many sources of expense, without in the least suppressing (so blunted are the French people to the sense of the observation of others) any of their comforts. We are persuaded, that our reader will find the same sustained interest which we took in reading M. Veron's account of the celebrated cafés and restaurants of Paris, where he enables us to form a quite clear conception of those stages, where, more than any

where else," men and women are merely players; "a far clearer conception, we dare say, than many of our countrymen who are in the city of Paris itself, are able to frame in consequence of the ignorance of the French language, and their position as foreigners. We abandon, then, our reader to the admirable guidance of M. Ve

ron:

-For now some thirty years I have lived in Paris almost as if I had been a foreigner, and since 1823 (under the Restoration), I have indulged my passion of observation, in those numerous restaurateurs which are peculiar to Paris. None

of the great capitals of Europe are adorned with these sumptuous establishments, with a luxurious service, open day and night, where a meal is ready, at all hours, where silence and solitude may be enjoyed in the midst of a crowd. Writers, princes, artists, magistrates, ministers, legislators, diplomatists, warriors, foreigners from every quarter of the globe, Crosuses of every rank and of every age, beauties from the North, and beauties from the South, how many generations, how many original characters, have offered themselves to the observer, inter pocula before those tables open to the first and to all comers. There is not a bourgeois of Paris, who on some days does not treat himself to a dinner at the Café de Paris, or at the Frères Provençaux, or at the Café Anglais, or at Riche's or Véry's, or at Vefour's. I have easily collected some very curious historical details about the restaurateurs and the celebrated cafés of Paris, and I must initiate my readers to this erudition which I have gained at the sources, and which throws, too, some light upon other times. Let us enter as chance may direct into all of these establishments; the origin of many of them dates many years back. The establishment, known under the name of the Frères Provençaux was founded in 1786; three young men born in Provence, united together by a warm friendship, but without the least fraternal relation, MM. Barthélemy, Manneilles, and Simon, rented a house near the Palais Royal and served meals there. When the stone arcades were constructed, they opened in them some saloons, which still form a portion of the splendid and vast apartments of the Frères Provençaux. One of these three friends was charged with the management and the surveillance of the establishment, the two others were attached, in the house of the Prince de Conti, to the service of the kitchen and the offices. In 1786 the saloons of the Trois

Frères Provençaux were far from resembling the present saloons of that wellknown restaurant; the furniture was exceedingly modest, the tables were covered with oil-cloth, the salt-cellars were of wood, silver-plate was rare. The Trois Frères Provençaux, nevertheless, already numbered a large number of customers; the wine there was unadulterated, and the vaults were rich in vintages of good years and good growths; the cooking was highly esteemed; and the Trois Frères Provençaux was instanced for the excellence of its dishes à la Provençale. General Bonaparte and Barras often dined together at the Provençaux, and from there they both went to the neighboring theatre of Mademoiselle Montansier. The great fortune of the Trois Frères Provençaux, dates especially from 1808, from the first war with Spain. Troops for that war were summoned from all parts of Germany; these troops passed through Paris: generals and officers selected the saloons of the Trois Frères Provençaux for their junketings. Gold was rare at this period, and the receipts were so large that several times during the day and evening, they were obliged to empty the safe which overflowed with silver into additional safes. The receipts were not less than twelve or fifteen thousand francs a day (some $2400 or $3000). The Trois Frères Provençaux also saw, with all the then famed restaurants, the fortunate days of 1808 reproduced in 1814 and 1815. This establishment was managed and kept by its founders, for fifty years. A man named Lionnet, still the butler of the establishment, has occupied that same post for forty-eight years. About 1836 the restaurant of the Trois Frères was purchased by the brothers Bellenger, who kept it only a year; the title, name and the restaurant were then sold by them to M. Collot, who for the last fifteen years has succeeded in maintaining the brilliant reputation and prosperity of this house.

It was only in 1805 the restaurant Véry was founded; it was situated in the Garden of the Tuileries, Terrasse des Feuillants; its rival and neighbor on this terrace was the restaurant Legacque. Véry's soon became fashionable; it obtained the orders for all the great dinners frequently given at the Ecole Militaire during the first years of the empire. The higher functionaries, generals, and especially Marshal Duroc, were the constant frequenters of Véry's. It was indeed Marshal Duroc, the Grand Master of the Palace, who had obtained for Véry the permission to open what was then called La Tente des Tuil

eries. The cooking was exquisite and scientific; the wines were excellent, and the guest was kindly received by the dame du comptoir, Madame Véry in those days, whose grace and beautiful eyes were much lauded. It was only in 1808 that Véry founded in the Palais Royal the house which still exists there, and until 1817 he kept at the same time the establishment of the Garden of the Tuileries and that of the Palais Royal. In 1817 Véry's and Legacque's shanties on the Terrasse des Feuillants were demolished. At this time Véry retired from business, the possessor of a large fortune, which his son soon inherited. Véry was born in 1760, in a village of the Meuse; he came to Paris wearing sabots (wooden shoes), and not less than thirty years old; he took a place as an assistant cook, and soon became a skilful cook. Véry sold his establishment to his three nephews, the brothers Meunier; of these three brothers, one died shortly after this purchase, the other sold his share to the third, who thus remained the sole proprietor; he retired in 1843; his successor was M. Neuhaus, the present proprietor. Véry's continues to be one of the best restaurants of Paris.

In 1749 an old officer, M. de Foy, founded the Café du Foy, which since became so celebrated. This café then occupied the whole of one story of a house situated in that portion of the Rue Richelieu which ran by the side of the Garden of the Palais Royal; a private staircase led from the Café du Foy to one of the entrances to the Garden, the stone arcades of the Palace not being then built. About 1774 the Café du Foy got into the hands of a M. Jossereau; this Jossereau had just married a young and pretty girl, whose beauty made a good deal of noise. The Duke of Orleans, the father of King Louis Philippe, wished to see the beautiful Madame Jossereau; one evening he entered the café and ordered an ice. He returned there several times, and gave the café his protection; Madame Jossereau had a private audience of the prince; she obtained for her husband the permission to sell refreshments and ices in the Horse-Chestnut Tree Row, in the Garden of the Palais Royal, where the stone arcades have been since built. Jossereau was, however, expressly interdicted from placing tables in the Garden, he was allowed to introduce only chairs. The stone arcades were completed about 1792. When they were completed, the Café du Foy was established in the apartments it still occupies. The Café du Foy is the first establishment of the kind opened in the Palais

Royal; among other celebrated frequenters it numbers the whole generation of the Vernets, the painters, Joseph, Carle, and Horace. In the midst of the ceiling of the ground-floor a bird may still be seen, which Carle Vernet painted from friendship to the proprietor. It was from the Café du Foy that (the eve of the taking of the Bastille) Camille Desmoulins set out, wearing a green leaf in his hat, and followed by an immense crowd; he called the bourgeois of Paris to arms. Madame Lenoir succeeded M. Jossereau, who was in turn succeeded by M. Lemaitre; lastly, M. Questel purchased the house from the latter; he is the present proprietor, and he has now kept the house for nearly twenty-five years.

In the Palais Royal another café was founded in 1805, which afterwards, under the Restoration, became a political café. I refer to the Café Lemblin. In the Galerie de Chatres No. 100 and No. 101, was a small café of the third or fourth rank: a man named Perron vegetated there for some twelve years or more; his lease ex pired; the landlord refused to renew it except upon the payment of a premium of a thousand écus, which Perron could not pay. One of the waiters of the Café de la Rotonde, named Lemblin, hearing of this affair, found resources and aid; he went to this exacting landlord, paid him the three thousand francs premium, and obtained a lease for twenty years. Con

fidence began to be restored; the Palais Royal was the rendezvous of all foreigners and of the gamblers of the whole world. Lemblin undertook to transform the dirty old café into a brilliant saloon; the plans were soon prepared by the architect, Alavoine, the same who was charged by the government to erect on the Place de la Bastille a colossal elephant in bronze, whose plaster model was in existence in 1830, when it served as the barracks to an army of rats. The Café Lemblin owed its success at first solely to the exquisite quality of its chocolate, tea, and coffee. But after 1814 this establishment had two classes of frequenters, that of the morning and that of the evening. In the morning no one was seen there but grave persons, academicians, savants, judges, enjoying the chocolate made by the famous Judicelli, and the coffee prepared by Viante, a Piedmontese, who was initiated into his art in Rome by the chief cook of the Vatican. Among the most faithful morning frequenters were Chappe, the inventor of the telegraph, Boïeldieu, Martinville, Jouy, of the Académie Française, who was then writing his Ermite

de la Chaussée d'Antin in La Gazette de France; Ballanche, now a member of the Académie Française; Brillat Savarin, a judge of the Cour de Cassation, whom his Physiologie du gout had not yet made famous. In the evening, under the floods of light poured down by the crystal chandeliers, the brilliant uniforms of the higher ranks of officers of all branches of the service were assembled. Among them might be seen General Cambronne, General Fournier, the brilliant Colonel (and afterwards General) Dulac, Colonel Sauzet, who was also made a general after having undergone ten years of imprisonment, from 1820 to 1830; Colonel Dufai, and a host of others whose blood had flowed on every battlefield of Europe. Among the waiters of the Café Lemblin was one named Dupont, a first cousin of M. Dupont (de l'Eure), then a deputy, and who has since been elected the president of two provisional governments. One evening in 1817, M Dupont (de l'Eure) having dined at the restaurant Trois Frères with several deputies, entered with them the Café Lemblin. The

coffee ordered by M. Dupont (de l'Eure) was served by Dupont the waiter. The latter recognized his illustrious cousin, blushed and trembled so much the tray almost fell out of his hands. The deputy also had recognized his relation. M. Dupont (de l'Eure) got up, and holding out both hands to the abashed waiter, said, "Eh! good-day. cousin; I am glad to see you, and to let you know that all are well at Neubourg "(a hamlet of the department of the Eure, the birthplace of the Dupont family). M. Dupont (de l'Eure) has always aided his poor relations. In 1848 he gave a place of porter in the Hotel de Ville to this same waiter of the Café Lemblin, who had become almost blind; he still occupies that post. It was in the Café Lemblin the first Russian and Prussian officers, who entered Paris in 1815, showed themselves. It was in the evening; the café was filled with officers who had returned from Waterloo, their arms in slings, their caps and helmets riddled with balls. They allowed the four foreign officers to take their seats at a table; but in a minute every body rose up as if struck by the same electric spark, and a formidable cry of Vive l'Empereur! made every window rattle; twenty officers sprang towards the four foreigners; a captain of the National Guard, a very Hercules in size and strength, placed himself before them. "Gentlemen," said he, "you have defended Paris abroad, it is our duty to have it respected at home!"

Then turning towards the foreign officers, he said, "Gentlemen, your premature presence offends the bourgeois of Paris, and a bourgeois of Paris demands satisfaction from you." Lemblin, who was a sergeant in the National Guard, then interfered, and under the pretext of obtaining quieter explanations, he carried the Russians and Prussians into his kitchen, from whence they escaped into the street. Although the Café Lemblin was the rendezvous of officers of the Empire, Gardes du Corps and Mousquetaires, with curled-up mustache and disdainful lip, came there to seek adventures. One evening the Gardes du Corps came in a large body and announced that the next day they would inaugurate above the comptoir the bust of Louis XVIII. The next day nearly three hundred officers of the Empire occupied the menaced place; but the authorities had received warning, and the Gardes du Corps did not appear.

Under the Restoration, the Café Valois flourished in the Palais Royal as a political club, and as the antagonist of the Café Lemblin. It was the very pacific and calm club of the old émigrés, who were then called the voltigeurs of Louis XIV. The Café Valois no longer exists.

About 1805 or 1806, the Café du Caveau and the Café de la Rotonde were opened near the Café Lemblin; these two houses were soon purchased by M. Angilbert, who in 1822 founded the Café de Paris. The Café du Caveau especially was frequented by officers of the Imperial Guard; all the celebrated men of the day in letters and the arts meet there; Demarne, the landscape painter, presided there for thirty years, in a small corner, where, from ten o'clock until midnight, all the painters and amateurs of the day were wont to meet. It was at the Café de la Rotonde a subscription was opened for the first ascension of the Brothers Montgolfier. This circumstance was inscribed upon a marble table. The busts of Philidor, Gluck, Piccini, Gretry, and Sacchini were placed in one of the saloons of the Café de la Rotonde; the Gluckists and the Piccinists often came to quarrel about music there, on their return from the opera, which was then situated in the Palais Royal. M. Angilbert kept this establishment from 1806 until July 1815. In 1814, M. Angilbert found himself in a bad state of fortune and of health; obliged to keep his bed, he was also obliged to abandon the management of his house to his head servant, Casimir B... Shortly after this the allies entered Paris, and from the 31st March,

1814, to the 15th July, 1815, when M. Angilbert began to recover, his house had made 467,000 francs profits. This fortune of M. Angilbert came to him while he was asleep and suffering.

The Café des Milles Colonnes was, under the Empire and the Restoration, the most brilliant and the best patronized café of all those on the second floor of the Palais Royal. For more than twenty years it was very fashionable; it owed its fortune to the beauty of the mistress of the house, Madame Romain, whose husband, by a sort of compensation, was small, lean, and one-armed. This very ill-assorted couple had just kept the Café du Bosquet in the Rue Saint Honoré, a thirdrate house, and where the beauty of Madame Romain soon attracted a crowd. A queue was formed early in the morning in front of the door of this café by the throng anxious to gain admittance, the concourse of the people was so great in the vicinity of the café, the authorities were obliged to interfere. The beautiful limonadière formed the object of more than one song:

*

"Et son nom par la ville,

Court ajusté sur l'air d'un vaudeville." About the end of 1817, the vogue of the Café des Milles Colonnes diminished, although Madame Romain, scarcely thirtyfour years old, was in all the bloom of her beauty. An intelligent man, Romain disdained half measures: he closed his café, and in a few days, aided by an army of skilful workmen, his saloons were transformed into a real palace of the Arabian Nights' Tales; the beautiful limonadière was seated on a regal throne. About 1824, the glory of the Café des Milles Colonnes was extinguished, as all glories are extinguished! In 1824, the onearmed Romain died by a fall from his horse, and two years afterwards the beautiful limonadière entered a convent.

The next most popular café of those on the second floor of the Palais Royal, after the Café des Milles Colonnes, was the Café de la Montansier. It was in the beginning of 1813 that a man named Chevalier opened a café in the room where for several years, Brunet, Tiercelin, Baptiste, jr., and even Mademoiselle Mars (then a mere child), had perfomed Vaudevilles. In 1831 this café became the Theatre du Palais Royal. Chevalier desired to trans

form this room into a café-theatre, but the authorities would allow him only to convert it into a café-chantant, or café where singing is served up with the coffee. The singers were placed upon the stage of the old theatre; and, as duos and trios were not interdicted, they easily contrived to play small lyrical dramas without contravening the letter of the license. This state of things lasted from the commencement of 1813 to the 20th March, 1815. From the 20th March, some warm partisans of the Empire- officers, and noncommissioned officers - extemporized a rostrum in this café, from which the Bourbons were daily insulted, from six o'clock in the evening until midnight. Hired singers no longer appeared; the stage was filled by customers who sang alternately different songs, which were very often repeated by all the persons present joining in chorus. I heard a captain of the confederates sing these couplets, with the choruses:

Captain.

Do you think a Bourbon can be King of a grand nation?

Chorus of Customers.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Captain.

But perhaps he can
Govern a small canton?

Chorus.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Captain.

Then the devil take him off
To Pluto's sombre palace!
Chorus.
Done, done, done, done, done, done, done.
Captain.

And let us sing with all our heart,
Vive le grand Napoleon!

Chorus.

Donc, done, done, done, done, done, done.

Another officer succeeded to this captain, who declared, in the first place, he did not know how to sing, but that, added he, does not hinder les sentiments, and

I don't care a d-n for the king,
Nor the Count d' Artois,
Nor the Duke d' Angoulême,

Nor the Duke de Berry,
Nor the Duchess neither,

Nor all those who love them.

These saturnalia lasted a hundred days, that is, until the return of Louis XVII. Then the hour of reprisals came; the

The French call a queue, or a tail (we use the French word in speaking of the old-fashioned appendage to a wig which streamed down our forefathers' backs), the double file (commonly marshalled between stout wooden barriers, just wide enough apart to admit two persons abreast) the police force the spectators of all public amusements to take, whenever a crowd seems likely to be formed. This arrangement preserves an adinirable order and comfort, to which we, as yet, are strangers on "Lind" or "Sontag Nights."

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