Café chantant

“ His short, square, vigorous figure, attired in a light-coloured alpaca coat, and surmounted by a round grizzled head, red-faced and bull-necked, might be seen advancing towards the café where he daily took his coffee—just flavoured with absinthe—with an indescribable air of majesty, which excited the mockery of those who dared to laugh, but was not without its awe-inspiring influence upon others. ”

“ Life still thrilled in song. Youth was not yet dead. Art was long and exigent.
It was their custom, after dinner, to adjourn to Champoreau's for café noir, served in the French style. In this large, bare saloon, with sanded floor, with its bar and billiard table, foreign as France, almost always deserted at this hour save by their company, the genial patron smiled at their gaiety, as he prepared the long glasses of coffee. ”

“ But in the inscrutable East, the cradle of mysticism, where no problem discourages earnest seekers after truth, coffee may yet be had in full perfection. In the West, France is not without her children of light, and in the tall glass of the café or the deep bowl of the auberge 255 coffee sometimes is not unworthy of the name, though chicory, the base, now threatens its ruin. However, Austria, nearer to the mother-country, makes the coffee of France seem but a paltry imitation, so delicious is the beautiful brown liquid, flowing in rich perennial streams in every café, gilded or more modest. ”

“ It is growing late and time for one’s coffee. The little tobacco-shop and café around the corner I find an excellent place for café au lait. The coffee is delicious and made when one chooses to arrive, not stewed like soup, iridescent in color, and bitter with chicory, as one finds it in many of the small French hotels. Two crescents, flaky and hot from the bakery next door, and three generous pats of unsalted butter, complete this morning repast, and all for the modest sum of twelve sous, with three sous to the garçon who serves you, with which he is well pleased. ”

“ If we quit for a moment the interior of the city to follow between two hedgerows of mastics or aloes, one of those capricious paths which lead one, now up to the summit of a hill, now to the depths of some ravine, very soon the tones of a rustic flute, the modulations of the Djou-wak, will betray some cool and peaceful retreat, some rustic café, easily recognized by its facade, pierced with large openings. ”

“ The best coffee in the world, taken altogether, is certainly made in Paris, though I have occasionally tasted at private houses in England, where the master was a gourmet, and the servants disciplined, finer coffee than was ever brewed either at the Café Foy or the Café Corrazza. ”

“ Where the turn-outs bear such a proportion to the drays, no wonder cafés thrive, exquisite drinks are served, and a corky people, who have a happy faculty, as illustrated by the late war, of coming up the quicker the farther they are pressed down, find the thing enjoyable.
A café-front indeed is better than an omnibus-top for studying Paris, and the café itself is a club for everybody. People go to it to gossip and regale themselves, play games, talk politics, read the newspapers, write letters, transact business it may be, sit, think, dream, and rest themselves. ”

“ Gérôme's painting of the "Coffee House at Cairo," which hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, gives one a good idea of the atmosphere of the Egyptian café. The preparation and service is modified Turkish-Arabian. The coffee is ground to a powder, boiled in an ibrik with the addition of sugar, and served frothing in small cups. Story-tellers, singers, and dancers furnish amusement as of yore. ”

“ Here stands, too, the theatre that is to be; there is a cafe, and on evenings a military band plays the very worst music I ever remember to have heard. I went out to-night to take a quiet walk upon this place, and the horrid brazen discord of these trumpeters set me half mad.
I went to the cafe for refuge, passing on the way a subterraneous beer-shop, where men and women were drinking to the sweet music of a cracked barrel-organ. They take in a couple of French papers at this cafe, and the same number of Belgian journals. ”

“ As a Frenchman rarely asks an acquaintance, or even a friend, to his apartment, the café has become the common ground where all meet, for business or pleasure. Not in Paris only, but all over France, in every garrison town, provincial city, or tiny village, the café is the chief attraction, the centre of thought, the focus toward which all the rays of masculine existence converge. ”

“ And then we rerolled fresh cigarettes, got our hats, and went to a café, six of us, where we crammed our petits verres with sugar-knobs and lighted them, meanwhile drinking bitter black coffee till the blue demon of the brandy should have flickered away. You know the style; it's the usual way of beginning.
After some half-hour's stay in the café we seperated—Haigh and the Cuban going off to a dance, whilst the little Frenchman carried me off elsewhere. ”

“ There, too, we found the large Venetian entrance-hall and an imposing-looking staircase, but no soul appeared.
Then we repaired to a café on the piazza. It was formerly an open "loggia," but between the stately marble columns some mean commercial soul has put glass windows, and the interior is dishonoured by the usual little marble tables and black leather seats. The ladies ordered coffee and sponge-cakes, I drank beer, and the "Gentle Lunatic" asked for a cup of hot water—his favourite drink.
CAFÉ AT CAPODISTRIA
One of the "G. L.'s" passions is his liking for low acquaintances. ”

“ A coffee-cup was hurled by some indignant compatriot of the man assaulted and sent a splendid looking-glass, seven or eight feet high, to irremediable ruin< A coffee-cup in a Constantinople café is made of porcelain as thick as a lady's little finger, and weighs something like a quarter of a pound. ”

“ To take a final survey, let us enter the Café de la Paix, the most imperial, cosmopolitan and stylish of cafés. That well-preserved man sitting by himself is playing solitaire—a group of one. That white-haired old gentleman sitting in the alcove yonder is drinking sweetened water—surely not a beverage calculated to pollute the palate. Those round-headed men, whose bald pates are fringed with gray, are now settling up their score. ”

“ Monico, a good place to drop in for a coffee and liqueur, and one of the pioneers of the modern restaurant; Gatti's, where café filtré, or coffee produced by the filtration method, is a specialty; the cosmopolitan Savoy with its popular tea lounge (teas, sixty cents) ; the Piccadilly Hotel, with its Louis XIV restaurant catering to refined and luxurious tastes; the Waldorf Hotel, with its American clientèle and its palm court (teas, thirty-six cents) ; the Cecil, with its palm court and tea balcony, also having a special attraction for Americans; Lyons' Popular Café (iced coffee, twelve cents) ”

“ Then the groves are illuminated by thousands of colored lights; Cafés Chantants are seen with gayly-dressed singers, sitting in ornamented kiosks, which are illuminated by jets of gas in every conceivable form; here, at a corner, a huge lyre of fire blazes, and beneath it shines, in burning letters, the name of a celebrated café, or theatre; the little booths and penny shows are all gayly illuminated; gas gleams and flashes in all sorts of fantastic forms from before and within the café ”

“ A plain room, divided into plain stalls by varnished partitions, and fitted with plain Pembroke tables, papers, periodicals, and magazines, not quite guiltless of coffee stains and bread-and-butter spots, a neat waitress, economical of speech, and who is forever ringing the changes between two refrains of “coffee and slice,” and “tea and an hegg”—are common to all coffee-houses. There is more deal in some, more mahogany in others; there are aristocratic coffee-houses, where they serve you silver salt-castors with your muffins, and silver cream-jugs with your coffee ”

“ Neither would you find MacMahon, Thiers or Victor Hugo at the café. The recognized great, the nobility and high officials, contrary to what perhaps is commonly supposed, are rarely to be seen there. They meet in some more private way.
But the café is nevertheless a very charming place. It is a place where it is permitted to you to surrender yourself to the most delicious reflections. You are in the presence of humming-birds, not ostriches or owls. The people are smoking cigarettes, or cigars at worst, not meerschaums. ”

“ Near the coffee-houses are one or two cataracts several feet high, and the perpetual sound of their fall, and the coolness they spread around, are exquisite luxuries—in the heat of day, or in the dimness of evening. There are two or three Cafés constructed somewhat differently from those just described: a low gallery divides the platform from the tide; fountains play on the floor, which is furnished with very plain sofas and cushions; and music and dancing always abound, of the most unrefined description. ”

“ It is a picturesque sight—of the Arab with his wild and graceful gestures, and his auditory, hushed into deep and child-like attention, seated at the edge of the rushing tide, while the narrator moves from side to side, and each accent of his distinct and musical voice is heard throughout the Café. The building directly opposite is another house, of a similar kind in every respect There are a few small Cafés, more select as to company, where the Turkish gentlemen often go, form dinner parties, and spend the day. ”

“ Still, certain cafés are able to boast a clientèle, with the military, journalistic, artistic or commercial element in preponderating force—cafés where the stockbrokers, students or officers go—but the old historic café, the café of tradition, where you were sure to find some celebrity on exhibition—a first-class poet or a philosopher—may be said to be defunct. ”

“ It was obviously impossible to pour out his own coffee and leave her the remainder. Should he ring for the waiter? No, the coffee should act as master of the ceremonies and bridge the gulf between them. Placing the coffee-pot and the milk-jug on the hearth, he waited, substituting a cigarette for his briar, lest its rich, juicy note might prove unmusical to feminine ears. For ten minutes he waited. Had the waiter merely made a mistake in bringing two cups instead of one? Possibly at this very moment she was enjoying her coffee in the dining-room. ”

“ In consequence, the Café Lander flourished exceedingly, and its circle of [Pg 56] clients daily increased, until it was known, far and wide, as the resort of embryo genius. For all the boisterous and good-tempered young fellows who crowded round its tables, and emptied bocks and consumed coffee (fifty centimes a cup with fine champagne) , were coming great men. They were the future lights in literature, art, philosophy, and politics. The real living great man they professed to regard with respectful admiration, but they wanted none of him in their midst. ”

“ My friend was bewildered because he did not understand the raison d'être of the café in French life. He thought that a café was a place to drink according to the American notion of drinking. The women were bad women in his eyes and the men on the downward path. To one who holds this curious notion the number of cafés in Paris and the crowds in them and at the little tables in front of them are inexplicable and alarming. Cafés, restaurants, brasseries and zincs line the boulevards, and there are at least two or three to a block in every street. ”

“ The pavements in front of the cafés are filled with little round tables, and here and there small groups of men idle cheerfully over tiny glasses of liqueur and cups of cool, black coffee; perhaps they talk a little business, certainly they gossip a great deal. Noisy little teams filled with merry people run down from the Promenade to the sea-shore ”

“ Coffee occupies a grand place in the life and pursuits of the gastronomer. Oft-times on leaving table his head aches and becomes heavy; he rises with pain; the savoury smells of viands, the flame of wax-lights, and the imperceptible gases which escape from innumerable wines and liqueurs, have produced around him a kind of mist or shade, equal to what the poet calls darkness visible. ”

“ After such an exalted eulogy, my own praises would sound dull and tame; and I therefore resume my pipe, commending Abd-el Kader to the reader.
"O Coffee! thou dispellest the cares of the great; thou bringest back those who wander from the paths of knowledge. Coffee is the beverage of the people of God, and the cordial of his servants who thirst for wisdom. When coffee is infused into the bowl, it exhales the odor of musk, and is of the color of ink. The truth is not known except to the wise, who drink it from the foaming coffee-cup. ”

“ The coffee-house where well-made, unadulterated coffee might be obtained would be a formidable rival to the gin-palace. As it is, however, the art of making coffee—if ever possessed at all in England—has been so completely lost that the increasing disuse of the beverage is no matter of surprise. ”

“ Coffee is our gold and in the place of its libations we are in the enjoyment of the best and noblest society. Coffee is as innocent a drink as the purest milk from which it is distinguished only by its color. Tarry with thy coffee in the place of its preparation and the good God will hover over thee and participate in His feast. There the graces of the salon, the luxury of life, the society of friends, all furnish a picture of the abode of happiness. ”