Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 100.djvu/302

284 which is not always to be arrived at without some previous initiation in Parisian chit-chat.

The Café de Foy, for example, was founded by a retired officer on the first floor of the Rue Richelieu. The beauty of the dame du comptoir became a subject of conversation. The Duke of Orleans, father o£ Louis Philippe, took so much interest in this lady, that he granted her permission to dispense ices in the garden of the Palais Royal, and the Café de Foy soon followed the fair dispenser of ices, and was the first of its kind that was opened in the Palais Royal It was particularly frequented by artists. A bird with expanded wings is still to be seen on the ceiling of the ground-floor, painted by Carle Vernet.

Far more frequently, however, political, literary, or artistic associations, give success and repute to a café. A certain Perrou had occupied for some dozen years a cafe of third or fourth-rate character, when one of the garçons of La Rotonde, Lemblin by name—every one knows the rotunda at the bottom of the garden—took the place and transformed it into a brilliant saloon. The chocolate was concocted by the famous Judicelli, the coffee was prepared by Viante, a Piedmontese, who had studied under the chéf of the Vatican, and in the morning academicians, magistrates, and other distinguished personages, savoured the exquisite fluids, while in the evening the uniforms of field-officers gave additional brilliancy to the flood of light that emanated from the crystal chandeliers.

Among the garçons of the Café Lemblin was one named Dupont, first cousin of M. Dupont (de l'Eure),at that time Deputy and since President of two Provisional Governments. One evening, in 1817, M. Dupont (de l'Eure), coming out of the Frères Provençaux, where he had dined in company with several deputies, entered with them the Café Lemblin. The coffee demanded bv M. Dupont (de l'Eure) was presented to him by Dupont, garçon limonadier. The latter recognised his illustrious cousin, blushed, trembled, and very nearly let the salver fall from his hands. The deputy, on his side, recognised his relative. M. Dupont (de l'Eure) got up, and holding out his hands to the astonished young man: "Eh! how are you, cousin?" he exclaimed; "I am delighted to see you, and to be able to tell you that all are well at Neubourg."

M. Dupont (de l'Eure) was always ready to assist his poor relatives. In 1848 he got this very garçon of the Café Lemblin appointed porter to the Hotel de Ville, and he still occupied that place in 1850, although nearly blind.

It was at the Café Lemblin that the first Russian and Prussian officers who entered Paris in 1815, showed themselves. It was evening, and the café was filled with officers who had returned from Waterloo, with their arms in scarfs, and their helmets and shakos riddled with bullets. The four strange officers were allowed to take their place at a table; but immediately every one rose up, as if seized by the same sudden electric impulse, and a formidable shout of "Vive l'Empereur" made the very window-frames shake. Twenty officers rushed towards the four strangers; a captain of the National Guard, a perfect Hercules, threw himself before them.

"Gentlemen," he said, "you have defended Paris without, it belongs to us to make it respected within." And then, turning towards the foreign officers, he continued: "Gentlemen, it is the bourgeois of Paris whom your premature appearance here offends, and it is a bourgeois of Paris who calls you to account. Lemblin, who held the rank of sergeant in the National Guard, then