Is the Café Procope, with its literary past, the oldest café in Paris?

The Café Procope on the Rue de l’Ancienne Comédie claims to be the oldest café in Paris (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

If you are in Dublin, you have to have coffee in Bewley’s on Grafton Street. If you are in Venice, you must have coffee in Florian or Quadri facing onto Saint Mark’s Square.

During this week’s visit to Paris, while we were staying on the Left Bank, there were two cafés close to one another in the 6th arrondissement that I was eager to visit. With its cityscape, intellectual tradition, history, architecture and central location, the 6th arrondissement has long been home to French intelligentsia.

The Café Procope on the Rue de l’Ancienne Comédie claims to be the oldest café in Paris in continuous operation. Les Deux Magots on Place Saint-Germain-des-Prés once had a reputation as the rendezvous of the literary and intellectual elite of the city.

The Café Procope was opened in 1686 by the Sicilian chef Procopio Cutò (also known as Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli and François Procope), and it became a hub of artistic and literary life in Paris in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Cutò first worked with Pascal, an Armenian immigrant who had a or ‘lemonade stand’ on rue de Tournon selling refreshments, including lemonade and coffee. Pascal’s business attempts were not successful and he moved to London in 1675, leaving his stall to Procopio.

Cutò relocated his kiosk to rue des Fossés-Saint-Germain-des-Prés in 1686. At first, it was described as an antre, a cavern or cave, because it was so dark inside, even when there was sunshine outside. Cutò bought a bath house, removed its fixtures removed, and installed crystal chandeliers, wall mirrors and marble tables in his new café – all now standard items in a modern European café.

His café soon became a place where gentlemen of fashion came to drink coffee, still seen as an exotic beverage and previously served in taverns, or to eat a sorbet, served in porcelain cups by waiters dressed in exotic ‘Armenian’ garb.

The Comédie-Française opened in 1689 in a theatre across the street from the café, giving the street its present name. The café attracted many actors, writers, musicians, poets, philosophers, revolutionaries, statesmen, scientists, dramatists, stage artists, playwrights, and literary critics.

Cutò changed his name to the gallicised form, François Procope, in 1702 and renamed the business Café Procope, the name has to this day.

Throughout the 18th century, the Procope was the meeting place of the intellectual establishment (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Throughout the 18th century, the Procope was the meeting place of the intellectual establishment. The nouvellistes of the scandal-gossip trade were regular clients, and their remarks at Procope were repeated in the police reports.

Rousseau retired to the Procope on 18 December 1752, before the performance of Narcisse, his last play, had even finished, saying publicly how boring it all was on the stage.

Café Procope is said to be the birthplace of the Encyclopédie, conceived by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert. Not all the Encyclopédistes drank 40 cups of coffee a day like Voltaire, who mixed his with chocolate, but they all met at Café Procope, as did Benjamin Franklin, John Paul Jones and Thomas Jefferson.

The Cordeliers, Robespierre, Danton and Marat all used the café as a meeting place, and Napoleon was seen there too.

During the Revolution, the Phrygian cap was first displayed at the Procope. It soon became the symbol of Liberty. After the Restoration, another customer was Alexander von Humboldt who, during the 1820s, lunched there every day from 11 am to noon.

The Café Procope retained its literary cachet; Alfred de Musset, George Sand, Gustave Planche, the philosopher Pierre Leroux, Coquille, editor of Le Monde, Anatole France and Mikael Printz were all regulars.

During the Second Empire (1852-1870), August Jean-Marie Vermorel of Le Reforme and Léon Gambetta were seen there, discussing their plans for social reform. The Conférence Molé held its meetings at the Café Procope in the 1860s. Léon Gambetta learned the art of public speaking at the Molé. Other active members included Ernest Picard, Clément Laurier and Léon Renault.

Recalling history … a plaque on the wall of the Procope (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

A plaque at Café Procope claims that it is the oldest continually-functioning café in the world. However, the claim is not entirely true. Two cafés I visited in Oxford last week claim to be much older: the Grand Café opened in 1650 and describes itself as ‘the first Coffee House in England’, while the Queen’s Lane Coffee House across the street was opened by Cirques Jobson in 1654 and claims to be the ‘longest established coffee in Europe.’

In fact, the original Café Procope closed its doors in 1872, and the property was bought by Baronne Thénard. She leased it to Théo Bellefonds, under the condition that he preserved the café’s atmosphere.

Bellefonds opened a private artist’s club and established a journal, Le Procope, neither of which was successful. The premises then became the Restaurant Procope, and in the 1920s it became a café called Au Grand Soleil. It reopened as a café only in the 1920s, so the claim to be the ‘oldest café’ is not entirely correct.

At some point, a new owner realised the marketing value of the original name and renamed it Café Procope. The Café Procope was refurbished in an 18th century style in 1988-1989.

As for Les Deux Magots nearby on Place Saint-Germain-des-Prés and its literary associations, that’s a story for another day.

The Café Procope was refurbished in an 18th century style in 1988-1989 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time with French saints and writers 8: 10 February 2024

Thomas Merton … ‘to be grateful is to recognise the Love of God in everything he has given us’

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time, the time between Candlemas and the 40 days of Lent, which begins next week on Ash Wednesday. The Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Saint Scholastica (ca 543), sister of Saint Benedict and Abbess of Plombariola, and tomorrow is the Sunday next before Left.

We spent two days in Paris earlier this week, and so, during these 11 days in Ordinary Time, my reflections each morning are drawing on the lives of 11 French saints and spiritual writers.

As this series of reflections began last Saturday, I admitted I am often uncomfortable with many aspects of French spirituality, and that I need to broaden my reading in French spirituality. So, I have turned to 11 figures or writers you might not otherwise expect. They include men and women, Jews and Christians, immigrants and emigrants, monks and philosophers, Catholics and Protestants, and even a few Anglicans.

Before this day gets busy, I am taking some quiet time early this morning for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, A reflection on a French saint or writer in spirituality;

2, today’s Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

Thomas Merton … the ‘beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves’

French saints and writers: Thomas Merton (1915-1968):

Thomas Merton (1915-1968), who had a had a major influence on modern western spirituality, has been described as the greatest Roman Catholic spiritual writer of the 20th century, and he is remarkable for his contributions to reintegrating spirituality and theology.

Thomas Merton is the author of 70 or more books and is best known for classics such as The Seven Storey Mountain, New Seeds of Contemplation and Zen and the Birds of Appetite. His writings cover a wide range of subjects, including spirituality and the contemplative life, prayer, and religious biography.

He was also deeply interested in issues of social justice and Christian responsibility. He did not shy away from controversy and addressed race relations, economic injustice, war, violence, and the nuclear arms race.

Thomas Merton is also remembered for his attempts to rearticulate the contemplative-monastic life and the Christian mystical tradition for today’s readers, his role in fostering ecumenical relations, particularly between Anglicans and Roman Catholics, and his role in interfaith dialogue, especially between Christians and Buddhists.

Thomas Merton was born in Prades, Pyrénées-Orientales, in France on 31 January 1915, and was baptised in the Anglican church in Prades. His father, Owen Heathcote Grierson Merton (1887-1931), was from New Zealand; his mother Ruth (Jenkins) was a Quaker artist from the US; they met when they were both living in Paris. Throughout his life, he remained proud of being French born of artist-parents.

The family later settled in New York. The birth of his brother, the death of his mother while Thomas was six, and the long-distance romances of his father created an unsettling life for Thomas Merton for some years. In his early teens he lived briefly at 18 Carlton Road, Ealing, in the 1920s.

His father died when he was 15, and he completed his schooling at Oakham, a public school in Rutland, and then enrolled as an undergraduate at Clare College, Cambridge. Some accounts say that he fathered a child while he was at Cambridge, but that the mother and child were killed in the London Blitz during World War II.

Without completing his degree at Cambridge, he returned to the US, and became a student at Columbia University in New York, where he developed friendships and relationships that would nurture him for the rest of his life.

Although he was nominally an Anglican, Thomas Merton underwent a dramatic conversion experience in 1938 and became a Roman Catholic. He recounts the experience of his conversion in his autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, which became a spiritual classic when it was published in 1948.

Thomas Merton joined the Trappists, the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance in 1941, entering the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky.

As a Trappist monk he was known as Father Louis, and his gifts as a writer were encouraged by the abbot. In addition to his translations of Cistercian sources and his original works, Thomas Merton carried on a prolific correspondence with people around the world on a wide range of subjects. Some of his correspondence takes the form of spiritual direction, some shows his deep affections for friends outside the community, and much of it demonstrates his ability to be fully engaged in the world even though he lived a cloistered life.

On 10 December 1968, Merton was in Bangkok in Thailand to attend an interfaith conference between Catholic and non-Christian monks when he got out of his bath to adjust an electric fan. He was electrocuted when touched an exposed wire with his wet hands and died a painful death.

On the very same day – 10 December 1968 – Karl Barth also died. He was one of the greatest theologians of the 20th century, and Pope Pius XII regarded Barth as the most important theologian since Thomas Aquinas.

Thomas Merton’s former family home at 18 Carlton Road, Ealing, a short walk from Ealing Abbey, is now a home of the Sisters of the Resurrection.

Thomas Merton in his own words:

The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.

By reading the scriptures I am so renewed that all nature seems renewed around me and with me. The sky seems to be a pure, a cooler blue, the trees a deeper green. The whole world is charged with the glory of God and I feel fire and music under my feet.

A life is either all spiritual or not spiritual at all. No man can serve two masters. Your life is shaped by the end you live for. You are made in the image of what you desire.

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

To be grateful is to recognise the Love of God in everything he has given us – and he has given us everything. Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from Him. Gratitude therefore takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder and to praise of the goodness of God. For the grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference.

‘Shall I … wake up the dirty ghosts under the trees of the Backs, and out beyond the Clare New Building’ (Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain) … punting on the Backs, behind Clare College, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 8: 1-10 (NRSVA):

1 In those days when there was again a great crowd without anything to eat, he called his disciples and said to them, 2 ‘I have compassion for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat. 3 If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way – and some of them have come from a great distance.’ 4 His disciples replied, ‘How can one feed these people with bread here in the desert?’ 5 He asked them, ‘How many loaves do you have?’ They said, ‘Seven.’ 6 Then he ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground; and he took the seven loaves, and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to his disciples to distribute; and they distributed them to the crowd. 7 They had also a few small fish; and after blessing them, he ordered that these too should be distributed. 8 They ate and were filled; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. 9 Now there were about four thousand people. And he sent them away. 10 And immediately he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the district of Dalmanutha.

Thomas Merton’s hermitage at the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, Kentucky (Photograph: Bryan Sherwood / Wikipedia, CC BY 2.0)

Today’s Prayers (Saturday 10 February 2024):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), has been ‘Gender Justice in Christ.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday by Ellen McMibanga, Zambia Anglican Council Outreach Programme.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (10 February 2024) invites us to pray in these words:

We pray for the church leaders, clergy and laity of the Anglican Church of Zambia. May they lead with wisdom, showing the example of equality to their congregations.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
you have created the heavens and the earth
and made us in your own image:
teach us to discern your hand in all your works
and your likeness in all your children;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who with you and the Holy Spirit reigns supreme over all things,
now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

God our creator,
by your gift
the tree of life was set at the heart of the earthly paradise,
and the bread of life at the heart of your Church:
may we who have been nourished at your table on earth
be transformed by the glory of the Saviour’s cross
and enjoy the delights of eternity;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Almighty God,
give us reverence for all creation
and respect for every person,
that we may mirror your likeness
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Collect on the Eve of the Sunday before Lent:

Almighty Father,
whose Son was revealed in majesty
before he suffered death upon the cross:
give us grace to perceive his glory,
that we may be strengthened to suffer with him
and be changed into his likeness, from glory to glory;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Yesterday’s Reflection (André and Magda Trocmé)

Continued Tomorrow (Paul Ricœur, 1913-2005)

Thomas Merton’s autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, became a spiritual classic when it was published

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Select reading:

Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1948).
Thomas Merton, Seeds of Contemplation (Norfolk, Connecticut: New Directions, 1949).
Thomas Merton, The wisdom of the desert; sayings from the Desert Fathers of the fourth century (New York: New Directions, 1961).
Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (New York: Doubleday, 1966).
Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation (New York: New Directions, 1972).

Laurence C Cunningham (ed), Thomas Merton: Spiritual Master. The Essential Writings (New York: Paulist Press, 1992).
Laurence C Cunningham (ed), Thomas Merton and the Monastic Vision (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999).
Esther De Waal, On Retreat with Thomas Merton, A Seven Day Programme (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2011).
James Forest, Thomas Merton, a Pictorial Biography (London: Catholic Truth Society, 1980).
Monica Furlong, Merton: A Biography (London: Ligouri, 1995).
Michael Mott, The Seven Mountains of Thomas Merton (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1986).
Philip Sheldrake, A Brief History of Spirituality (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007).