Café Procope

[
Condorcet, La Harpe, Voltaire (with his arm raised) and Diderot.]

Café Procope, in "rue de l'Ancienne Comédie", 6th arrondissement, is the oldest restaurant of Paris. It was opened in 1686 by the Sicilian Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli, with a slyly subversive name adopted from the historian Procopius, whose "Secret History", the "Anekdota", long known of, had been discovered in the Vatican Library and published for the first time ever in 1623: it told the scandals of Emperor Justinian, his ex-dancer Empress, and his court. [Whether or not the "Procopio" was an addition to his name, his son, naturalised as Michel Procope-Couteau (1684–1753), was a doctor of medicine, a Freemason by 1727, a writer, wit and bon vivant who became a librarian at the Faculty of Medicine late in life. (Gordon R. Silber, "In Search of Helvetius' Early Career as a Freemason" "Eighteenth-Century Studies" 15.4 (Summer 1982, pp. 421-441) pp 432ff.] Café Procope, in the street then known as "rue des Fossés-Saint-Germain-des-Prés", started as a café where gentlemen of fashion might drink coffee, the exotic beverage that had previously been served in taverns, or eat a sorbet, served up in porcelain cups by waiters in exotic "Turkish" garb. [Jean Leclant, "Coffee and cafés in Paris, 1644-1693" in Robert Foster and Orest Ranum, eds., "Food and Drink in History: Selections from the Annales" (Baltimore) 1979).] The escorted ladies who appeared at Café Procope in its earliest days soon disappeared. In 1689 the Comédie française was established across the street— hence the street's modern name— and the Procope became known as the "theatrical" café, and remained so: it was to the Procope on 18 December 1752 that Rousseau retired before the performance of his last play "Narcisse" had even finished, all too aware, now that he had seen it mounted, he said publicly, how boring it all was on the stage. [E. P. Shaw, "The Chevalier de Mouhy's Newsletter of 20 December 1752" "Modern Language Notes" 70.2 (February 1955, pp. 114–116), p. 116.]

It was the unexampled "mix" of habitués that surprised visitors, though no one remarked on the absence of "women". Louis, chevalier de Mailly, in "Les Entretiens des caffés" , 1702, remarked:

:"The cafés are most agreeable places, and ones where one finds all sorts of people of different characters. There one sees fine young gentlemen, agreeably enjoying themselves; there one sees the "savants" who come to leave aside the laborious spirit of the study; there one sees others whose gravity and plumpness stand in for merit. Those, in a raised voice, often impose silence on the deftest wit, and rouse themselves to praise everything that is to be blamed, and blame everything that is worthy of praise. How entertaining for those of spirit to see originals setting themselves up as arbiters of good taste and deciding with an imperious tone what is over their depth!" ["Les cafés sont des lieux fort agréables et où l’on trouve toutes sortes de gens et de différents caractères. L’on y voit de jeunes cavaliers bien faits, qui s’y réjouissent agréablement ; l’on y voit aussi des personnes savantes qui viennent s’y délasser l’esprit du travail de cabinet ; l’on y en voit d’autres dont la gravité et l’embonpoint leur tiennent lieu de mérite. Ceux-ci, d’un ton élevé, imposent souvent silence au plus habile, et s’efforcent de louer tout ce qui est digne de blâme et de blâmer tout ce qui est digne de louange. Quel divertissement pour des gens d’esprit de voir des originaux s’ériger en arbitres du bon goût et décider d’un ton impérieux ce qui est au-dessus de leur portée!" Quoted in Paul Lacroix, "Journaux et critiques littéraires au XVIIIe siècle" (1878) ( [http://perso.orange.fr/dboudin/zGalerie/Journaux.html#Procope, on-line text] )]

Throughout the eighteenth century the Procope was the meeting place of the intellectual establishment, and of the "nouvellistes" of the scandal-gossip trade, whose remarks at Procope were repeated in the police reports. [A police spy reported in 1749 on one of these scurrilous writers, Mairobert, who later wrote a libellous "biography" of Mme du Barry: "speaking about the reorganization of the army, Mairobert said in the Café Procope that any soldier who had an opportunity should blast the court to hell, since its sole pleasure is in devouring the people and committing injustices" (quoted in Robert Darnton, "An Early Information Society: News and the Media in Eighteenth-Century Paris" "The American Historical Review" 105.1 (February 2000, pp. 1-35) p. 9 and note.] Not all the "Encyclopédistes" drank forty cups of coffee a day like Voltaire, who mixed his with chocolate, but they all met at Procope, as did Benjamin Franklin, [On 15 June 15 1790, after the National Assembly had adjourned to mourn Benjamin Franklin's death, the "True Friends of Liberty" met at the Procope. M. de la Fite, a lawyer, conducted a memorial service in front of Franklin's portrait, which hung there, along with those of Voltaire and other notables (Daniel Jouve, Alice Jourve, and Alvin Grossma, "Paris : Birthplace of the U.S.A."); Gilbert Chinard, "The Apotheosis of Benjamin Franklin Paris, 1790-1791" "Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society" 99.6, (December 1955), p 443.] John Paul Jones, Thomas Jefferson. Alain-René Lesage described the hubbub at Procope in "La Valise Trouvée" (1772): "There is an ebb and flow of all conditions of men, nobles and cooks, wits and sots, pell mell, all chattering in full chorus to their heart's content." [Arthur Morris, in "Notes and Queries" 16 August 1890:188.] In the increasingly democratic mix it will be noted there were still no women. Writing a few years after the death of Voltaire Louis-Sébastien Mercier [ .Mercier, "Tableau de Paris", VI:222, quoted in Georges May, "The Eighteenth Century" "Yale French Studies" No. 32, Paris in Literature (1964, pp. 29–39), p.31.] noted :"All the works of this Paris-born writer seem to have been made for the capital. It was foremost in his mind when he wrote. While composing, he was looking towards the French Academy, the public of Comédie française, the Café Procope, and a circle of young musketeers. He hardly ever had anything else in sight."

During the Revolution the Phrygian cap, soon to be the symbol of Liberty, was first displayed at the Procope; the Cordeliers, Robespierre, Danton and Marat all used the cafe as a meeting place. After the Restoration, another famous customer was Alexander von Humboldt, who lunched here during the 1820s every day from 11am to noon. The Procope retained its literary cachet: Alfred de Musset, George Sand, Gustave Planche, the philosopher Pierre Leroux, M. Coquille, editor of "Le Monde", Anatole France were all regulars. Under the Second Empire, August Jean-Marie Vermorel of "Le Reforme" or Léon Gambetta [J. P. T. Bury, "Gambetta and the National Defence: A Republican Dictatorship in France" (New York) 1936.] would expound their plans for social reform. In 1874, however, Café Procope closed its doors, seemingly forever. ["Les cafés artistiques et littéraires de Paris", 1882 ( [http://www.paris-pittoresque.com/cafes/2b.htm on-line text] )] Its impending disappearance occasioned a historical note in "Notes and Queries" 16 August 1890, but it soon reopened, now as something of a historical landmark, as "Les Deux Magots" would become. It was refurbished in 1989 in eighteenth-century style.

Notes

External links

* [http://www.procope.com/ Procope.com]