Robespierrists, all gathered where their friends were known to meet. In the early nineteenth century on the displacement of the favourite promenade of Parisian _flaneurs_ from the Palais Royal to the Boulevard des Italiens, the proprietors of cafés and restaurants followed. A group of young fellows entered one evening a small _cabaret_ near the Comédie Italienne (now Opéra Comique), found the wine to their taste and the cuisine excellent. They praised host and fare to their friends, and the modest _cabaret_ developed into the Café Anglais, most famous of epicurean temples, frequented during the Second Empire by kings and princes, to whom alone the haughty proprietor would devote personal care. The sumptuous cafés Tortoni founded in 1798 and de Paris opened 1822 have long since passed away. So has the Café Hardy, whose proprietor invented _dejeûners à la fourchette_, although its rival and neighbour, the Café Riche, still exists. "One must be very Hardy to dine at Riche's, and very Riche to dine at Hardy's," was the celebrated _mot_ of an old gourmand of the First Empire. During the early times of the Third Republic the Café Fronton was crowded almost daily by prominent politicians, Gambetta, Spuller, Naquet and others, while the Imperialists, under Cassagnac, met at the Café de la Paix in the Place de l'Opéra, which was dubbed the Boulevard de l'Isle d'Elbe. Many others of the celebrated cafés of the boulevards have disappeared or suffered a transformation into the more popular Brasseries or Tavernes of which so many, alternating with the theatres, restaurants and dazzling shops that line the most-frequented evening promenade of Paris, invite the thirsty or leisurely pleasure-seeker of to-day.