Les Entretiens des cafés de Paris

12 mo of 1 frontispiece, (5) ll., 438 pp., (3) ll.
Oranged morocco, triple gilt fillet on covers, decorated ribbed spine, inner gilt, gilt edges. Hardy.

150 x 90 mm.

Mailly, Louis de (1657-1724). Les Entretiens des cafés de Paris, et les différens qui y surviennent. 
Trévoux, Etienne Ganeau, 1702.

The very rare first edition– unknown to Brunet – of the utmost interest for the history of coffeehouses and their influence in the French bourgeoisie and aristocracy française and on the 17^th century Parisian coffeehouses “these factories of the mind”.

« Les Entretiens des Cafés de Paris et les Différents qui y surviennent par M. le C. de M** (Trévoux, 1702), seem to be the first account of coffee houses. The author, the Chevalier de Mailly, sketches a series of « portraits » and alanlyzes some « characters » with considerable finesse. Furthermore the very precious vignettes give one of the earliest views of a coffee house in 1702 : The Carnavalet Museum doesn’t possess any document dating back to that time (Bibli. Hist. Ville de Paris, 921 425). »

The very rare first edition of this fascinating collection of interviews filled with amusing and charming anecdotes which paint a vivid picture of Parisian coffe houses during the reign of Louis XIV.

The volume is adorned with a lovely frontispiece depicting the interior of a Parisian café, with figures seated at tables sipping drinks and others playing cards or backgammon, and with a woodcut vignette repeated at the beginning of each chapter, which also depicts a café scene.

“A curious work, peppered with anecdotes and details of social customs. ‘One finds here,’ the bookseller tells the reader, ‘characters and portraits which, being drawn from life, may be more pleasing than those found in this genre of writing. The style is pleasant; it is concise without being obscure, and clear without being rambling.’” The first cafés were established in Paris around 1675; they bore little resemblance to those of today. The figure at the beginning of the volume and the woodcut vignette serving as a frontispiece to each conversation give us an idea of what a café looked like at that time. One must have the key to the work of the Chevalier de Mailly, who was a regular at the café and must have known his crowd well” (Bulletin du bibliophile).

“Halfway through his Tableau de la Régence, Michelet suddenly pauses to draw from a minor anecdote a broader insight into the history of humanity. “The three ages of coffee,” he writes, “are those of modern thought,” and he subtly analyzes the delicate aroma of Arabian coffee, then the more acrid flavor of Indian coffee, “coffee from volcanic soil, which sparked the explosion of the Regency and the new spirit”—and finally the full-bodied, full-bodied, nourishing as well as stimulating flavor of West Indian coffee, which “nourished the century’s adulthood, the robust age of the Encyclopédie.” One may not believe the “visionary historian” when he asserts that “the prophets gathered in Procopius’s lair saw in the depths of the black beverage the future ray of ’89 "; one must acknowledge, however, that the consumption of coffee gave the 18th century a character entirely different from that of the 17th, a wine-drinking era. Saint-Amant frequented taverns, seeking inspiration

Dans le doux chant des orgies,
dans l'éclat des trognes rougies.

Molière, La Fontaine, Racine, Chapelle, and Boileau went to the tavern to drink “September purée” and to chat; but the Philosophes—Fontenelle, Diderot, Marmontel, d’Alembert, Beaumarchais, Voltaire—frequented the cafés, those “factories of the mind, both good and bad,” and sought in the “sober, powerfully cerebral liquor” a stimulant for their critical faculties. Thus the French spirit was transformed when the custom of a new beverage spread, marking one of the stages in the conquest of French society by Eastern influences. It is not insignificant, either for the history of ideas or for that of customs, to investigate what role “coffee liqueur” and the “coffee house” played in Paris as early as the 17th century.

The beginnings of coffee were very modest. It was through a long series of vicissitudes that it gained acceptance in France and gradually won public favor. The bean was introduced in 1644; the drink’s success was assured in 1693: it took fifty years to overcome all obstacles.

In 1657, introduced by Jean de Thévonot, coffee made its appearance in Paris. The famous traveler, having brought back from Egypt a supply of the precious bean, treated his friends to it—friends who were perhaps not all scholars of the East in the same vein as Mr. de la Croix, the King’s interpreter of the Turkish language, who has preserved the memory of this for us.

Some members of high society, always on the lookout for new pleasures, even prided themselves on having Italian coffee makers in their service. In 1660, a certain Sieur More was assigned by Mazarin’s maître d’hôtel to his team of cooks, while Andréa Salvator came to prepare the new beverage at the home of Marshal de Gramont, who was “very curious about such things.”

The small rooms where coffee was consumed, however, were nothing more than shacks filled with smoke. Then, on Rue des Fossés-Saint-Germain, an establishment of a completely different character appeared—pleasant, clean, even luxurious: the first true café, founded by Francesco Procopio Coltelli.

It was then that, by a happy coincidence, a large clientele came to Procope. Driven out of Rue Mazarine in 1687 by the hostility of the Jansenists, their neighbors, the Comédiens du Roi, settled in the Jeu de Paume hall of Sieur de l’Étoile on Rue des Fossés-Saint-Germain, directly across from Café Procope, and built a new theater; on April 18, 1689, the Comédie-Française inaugurated its new theater with a sensational performance of Phèdre and Le Médecin malgré lui. Inside the theater itself, Procope held his place; for he had rented the “lemonade box” and set up a “dispenser of sweet liquors.” A pivotal development: the Café Procope itself became the headquarters for all those connected with the Comédie.

Until then, Procope had mainly been frequented by players of the game of Malus (located behind the café), players of jeu de paume from the household of Sieur de l’Étoile, and a few local swordsmen. He had also built up a clientele among the many passersby who crossed the Bussy intersection, then the true center of Paris on the Left Bank. From the streets of Dauphine, Mazarine, Saint-André-des-Arts, des Boucheries, and de Condé, people would happily make their way to the Rue des Fossés-Saint-Germain to enjoy an ice cream or savor a cup of coffee. But once the Comédie was built, a new clientele flocked in: authors, actors, short-story writers, men of letters, as well as dandies and farmers-general, drawn to the area by the charms of the actresses. So, dressed in oriental costumes, draped in loose-fitting garments and wearing fur caps, they brought their small cups of steaming beverages to a very diverse clientele: handsome young horsemen; gallant abbots delighting in sweets; discreet couples taking refuge amid the crowd and the noise; scholars and men of letters as well, who “discuss matters of scholarship, without restraint or ceremony, so to speak, while entertaining themselves.” Over a cup of coffee, people chat; “conversation is an essential accompaniment to coffee or tea; it is, in fact, almost their very reason for being.” The café, barely born, is a literary café.

From the very beginning, too, it is a political café. There, more serious matters of government are discussed. And the authorities immediately take an interest in these potential centers of opposition. On December 27, 1685, Seignelay wrote to La Reynie: “The King has been informed that, in several places in Paris where coffee is served, gatherings of all sorts of people—and particularly foreigners—are taking place. Whereupon His Majesty orders me to ask you whether you do not think it would be appropriate to prevent them in the future.”

But the success of the new establishments was so striking that the Lieutenant of Police did not accept the Secretary of State’s proposal. Next to the Procope, many other cafés began to spring up: at the Foire Saint-Germain, the modest stalls were transformed into elegant rooms, where the “Armenian” waiters now used silver coffee pots; at the corner of Rue Dauphine and Rue Christine, Laurent founded a café that quickly became famous; on Rue Saint-André-des-Arts, Etienne d’Alep settled down after having, for years, roamed the streets shouting, “Coffee!” In short, by 1690, the entire elegant center of Parisian life between the Carrefour de Bussy, the Foire Saint-Germain, and the Seine had embraced the new trend: it was fashionable to go to a café. From then on, “coffee liqueur” and “coffee houses” were able to readily meet the growing public demand. Coffee, which had made its modest debut in Marseille half a century earlier thanks to exotic intermediaries—travelers, Italians, Turks, Armenians, Sicilians—and to numerous and varied coincidences, had definitively earned its place in Paris. To this day, “there are no cafés like those of Paris.” (Jean Leclant (Institut français d’Archéologie orientale, Le Caire.)

An illegitimate son of the House of Mailly and godson of Louis XIV, the Chevalier de Mailly (1657–1724) was also the author of an adaptation of *The Adventures of the Three Princes of Serendip* and some twenty fairy tales.

An attractive copy in an elegant morocco binding by Hardy, with all its margins and gilt edges.

From Gustave Mouravit’s library (1938, I, n° 367), with his stamp and a handwritten note on the flyleaf: “Our volume, whose rarity and significance Édouard Fournier has rightly highlighted… This volume is extremely rare. This copy is magnificent and in perfect condition, but it also has the distinction—perhaps unique—of having retained all of its margins” (G. Mouravit).