Lacking favor at court, coffee's progress was slow. The French smart set clung to its light wines and beers. In 1672, Maliban, another Armenian, opened a coffee house in the rue Bussy, next to the Metz tennis court near St.-Germain's abbey. He supplied tobacco also to his customers. Later he went to Holland, leaving his servant and partner, Gregory, a Persian, in charge. Gregory moved to the rue Mazarine, to be near the Comedie Francaise. He was succeeded in the business by Makara, another Persian, who later returned to Ispahan, leaving the coffee house to one Le Gantois, of Liege. About this period there was a cripple boy from Candia, known as le Candiot, who began to cry "coffee!" in the streets of Paris. He carried with him a coffee pot of generous size, a chafing-dish, cups, and all other implements necessary to his trade. He sold his coffee from door to door at two sous per dish, sugar included. [Illustration: MANY OF THE EARLY PARISIAN COFFEE HOUSES FOLLOWED PASCAL'S LEAD AND AFFECTED ARMENIAN DECORATIONS From a Seventeenth-Century Print] A Levantine named Joseph also sold coffee in the streets, and later had several coffee shops of his own. Stephen, from Aleppo, next opened a coffee house on Pont au Change, moving, when his business prospered, to more pretentious quarters in the rue St.-Andre, facing St.-Michael's bridge. [Illustration: A CORNER OF THE HISTORIC CAFE DE PROCOPE SHOWING VOLTAIRE AND DIDEROT IN DEBATE From a rare water color] All these, and others, were essentially the Oriental style of coffee house of the lower order, and they appealed principally to the poorer classes and to foreigners. "Gentlemen and people of fashion" did not care to be seen in this type of public house. But when the French merchants began to set up, first at St.-Germain's fair, "spacious apartments in an elegant manner, ornamented with tapestries, large mirrors, pictures, marble tables, branches for candles, magnificent lustres, and serving coffee, tea, chocolate, and other refreshments", they were soon crowded with people of fashion and men of letters. In this way coffee drinking in public acquired a badge of respectability. Presently there were some three hundred coffee houses in Paris. The principal coffee men, in addition to plying their trade in the city, maintained coffee rooms in St.-Germain's and St.-Laurence's fairs. These were frequented by women as well as men. _The Progenitor of the Real Parisian Cafe_ It was not until 1689, that there appeared in Paris a real French adaptation of the Oriental coffee house. This was the Cafe de Procope, opened by Francois Procope (Procopio Cultelli, or Cotelli) who came from Florence or Palermo. Procope was a _limonadier_ (lemonade vender) who had a royal license to sell spices, ices, barley water, lemonade, and other such refreshments. He early added coffee to the list, and attracted a large and distinguished patronage.