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. 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.
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.
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