Old and New Paris: Its History, Its People, and Its Places, v. 1Edwards, H. Sutherland (Henry Sutherland)
History
Old and New Paris: Its History, Its People, and Its Places, v. 1
Edwards, H. Sutherland (Henry Sutherland)
Paris (France) -- Description and travel; Paris (France) -- History
Unlike the Temple of Janus, which was never shut in time of war, the
Maison Dorée could only keep its doors open in time of peace. Such war,
at all events, as the Prussians brought to the gates of Paris and to
Paris itself in 1870 and 1871 was fatal to its existence. Since those
terrible years Paris has lost something of its gaiety and frivolity. The
Café Anglais still exists; but even at this celebrated supping-place of
former years supper is now an unknown meal. Nothing is served in the
Café Anglais after nine o'clock. This café, oddly enough, seems to have
been named after a nation which in the year 1815 can scarcely have been
popular among the French. Its origin, or at least its name, dates from
the year of the Waterloo campaign, and, strangely enough, it is the only
great restaurant of that period which to this day survives. Possibly the
establishment was not called Café Anglais merely by way of invitation
to the English portion of the occupying forces. The title may have been
meant to indicate that the service of the table was conducted after the
English rather than the French fashion. The French, it must be admitted,
preceded us in the matter of napkins, and also, if their boast on the
subject can be admitted, in the earlier use of four-pronged forks, made
by preference of silver. But in the year 1815 the French knew nothing of
salt-spoons; and though plates were changed frequently enough, the same
knife and fork served throughout the various courses, the diner cleaning
on a piece of bread a knife which did duty for every dish which came
on the table. It replaced the salt-spoon, and was frequently used for
conveying food to the mouth. Not only English dining-places, but English
hotels were highly esteemed in 1815; and Dr. Véron, in his "Mémoires
d'un Bourgeois de Paris," speaks of cleanliness as an English invention
unknown to the French until the peace which followed the Napoleonic wars.
In the art of living the French have generally been considered by the
rest of Europe to have reached the greatest proficiency; and their
methods and customs have accordingly been more imitated than those of
any other nation. Of their cookery there is but one opinion; for every
man in Europe who can afford a great table keeps either a French cook
or a cook educated in the French school. The variety given by French
cooks to the very simplest dish is too well known to require emphasis;
and even Macaulay quotes the story of that Parisian chef who could make
twelve different dishes out of a poppy-head.
In the matter of table as of drawing-room etiquette the French in
Arthur Young's time seem to have been both superior and inferior to
the English. It is true that the French artisan would not dine without
a clean napkin on his knee; but it is equally true that the French
aristocrat would sometimes spit about the floor in presence of a duchess
with a freedom which would be resented in any English tap-room.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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