I observe that our geometrician was received there with the utmost officiousness, and that the coffee house boys paid him much more respect than two musqueteers who were in a corner of the room. As for him, he seemed as if he thought himself in an agreeable place; for he unwrinkled his brows a little and laughed, as if he had not the least tincture of geometrician in him.... He was offended at every start of wit, as a tender eye is by too strong a light.... At last I saw an old man enter, pale and thin, whom I knew to be a coffee house politician before he sat down; he was not one of those who are never to be intimidated by disasters, but always prophesy of victories and success; he was one of those timorous wretches who are always boding ill. Cafe Momus and Cafe Rotonde figure conspicuously in the record of French bohemianism. The Momus stood near the right bank of the River Seine in rue des Pretres St.-Germain, and was known as the home of the bohemians. The Rotonde stood on the left bank at the corner of the rue de l'Ecole de Medecine and the rue Hautefeuille. [Illustration: THE CAFE DE PARIS IN 1843 From an engraving by Bosredon] Alexandre Schanne has given us a glimpse of bohemian life in the early cafes. He lays his scene in the Cafe Rotonde, and tells how a number of poor students were wont to make one cup of coffee last the coterie a full evening by using it to flavor and to color the one glass of water shared in common. He says: