chapter XI
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The custom of drinking coffee having become general in the capital, as well as in Marseilles and Lyons, the example was followed in all the provinces. Every city soon had its coffee houses, and the beverage was largely consumed in private homes. La Roque writes: "None, from the meanest citizen to the persons of the highest quality, failed to use it every morning or at least soon after dinner, it being the custom likewise to offer it in all visits."
"The persons of highest quality" encouraged the fashion of having _cabaréts à caffé_; and soon it was said that there could be seen in France all that the East could furnish of magnificence in coffee houses, "the china jars and other Indian furniture being richer and more valuable than the gold and silver with which they were lavishly adorned."
In 1671 there appeared in Lyons a book entitled _The Most Excellent Virtues of the Mulberry, Called Coffee_, showing the need for an authoritative work on the subject--a need that was ably filled that same year and in Lyons by the publication of Philippe Sylvestre Dufour's admirable treatise, _Concerning the Use of Coffee, Tea, and Chocolate_. Again at Lyons, Dufour published (1684) his more complete work on _The Manner of Making Coffee, Tea, and Chocolate_. This was followed (1715) by the publication in Paris of Jean La Roque's _Voyage de l'Arabie Heureuse_, containing the story of the author's journey to the court of the king of Yemen in 1711, a description of the coffee tree and its fruit, and a critical and historical treatise on its first use and introduction to France.
La Roque's description of his visit to the king's gardens is interesting because it shows the Arabs still held to the belief that coffee grew only in Arabia. Here it is:
There was nothing remarkable in the King's Gardens, except the great pains taken to furnish it with all the kinds of trees that are common in the country; amongst which there were the coffee trees, the finest that could be had. When the deputies represented to the King how much that was contrary to the custom of the Princes of Europe (who endeavor to stock their gardens chiefly with the rarest and most uncommon plants that can be found) the King returned them this answer: That he valued himself as much upon his good taste and generosity as any Prince in Europe; the coffee tree, he told them, was indeed common in his country, but it was not the less dear to him upon that account; the perpetual verdure of it pleased him extremely; and also the thoughts of its producing a fruit which was nowhere else to be met with; and when he made a present of that that came from his own Gardens, it was a great satisfaction to him to be able to say that he had planted the trees that produced it with his own hands.
The first merchant licensed to sell coffee in France was one Damame François, a bourgeois of Paris, who secured the privilege through an edict of 1692. He was given the sole right for ten years to sell coffees and teas in all the provinces and towns of the kingdom, and in all territories under the sovereignty of the king, and received also authority to maintain a warehouse.
To Santo Domingo (1738) and other French colonies the café was soon transported from the homeland, and thrived under special license from the king.
In 1858 there appeared in France a leaflet-periodical, entitled _The Café, Literary, Artistic, and Commercial_. Ch. Woinez, the editor, said in announcing it: "The Salon stood for privilege, the Café stands for equality." Its publication was of short duration.
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