Rotonde. Its present proprietor, M. Lovet,
has converted it into an elegant building,
beautifully decorated. This café has one
peculiarity: you can neither smoke in it, nor play at
any kind of game; and a few years since it
possessed another, in the magnificent bass voice of
one of its waiters. His name was Lafont, but
everybody called him Lablache, on account of
the compass and depth of his tones, which
literally made the cups dance when pouring out the
coffee he said: "Pas d'crême, mossieu?" For
fear of wearing out his voice—of which he
was uncommonly proud—Lafont performed his
functions only for six months in the year, gaining
enough in the summer to live upon during
the winter. An old lady of rank, being struck
by the stentorian quality of his organ, induced
him to leave the café and enter the Conservatoire,
that he might become famous as a singer;
but he did not take to regular study, sighed
for his white apron, returned to the Rotonde,
and resumed his old calling. Melancholy
afterwards seized upon him, and he died in a
madhouse.

The Palais Royal boasts another café nearly
as ancient as the Rotonde, and of greater
historical celebrity: this is the Café de Foy, which
does not take its name, as many suppose, from
the famous general, but on account of its having
been founded by M. de Foy, an old officer,
retired from the army in the reign of Louis the
Fifteenth, who opened it in 1749, on the first
floor of one of the houses on the side nearest to
the Rue de Richelieu. The stone galleries were
not then built, but a private staircase led from
the Café de Foy to the entrance to the Allée des
Marronniers, where the proprietor wished to
sell refreshments also, but he could not obtain
permission to do so. His successor, Joussereau
(or Josserand), had a very pretty wife—so pretty
that she was called La belle Limonadière—and
the Duke of Orleans (Egalité) hearing of her
beauty, went to eat an ice at the Café de Foy.
This ice, or probably Madame Joussereau, set his
head on fire, and he repeated his visits; which
the fair Limonadière took advantage of to beg
the license to sell refreshments in the Allée des
Marronniers, on the site of which was
afterwards constructed the Galerie Montpensier.
When this gallery was built, the Café de Foy
descended from the first to the ground floor, and
established itself where we now find it. It was
out of this quiet-looking place which, like Pallas
issuing all armed from the brain of Jupiter, the
revolution of 1789 went forth, in the person
of Camille Desmoulins, when, on the 12th of
July of that year, he harangued a tumultuous
assemblage in the garden of the Palais Royal.
"Mounted upon a table"—it is Desmoulins
himself who speaks—"I said, 'Citizens, not a
moment must be lost! I have just come from
Versailles; M. Necker is dismissed. This
dismissal is the tocsin of a Saint-Bartholomew of
patriots. This evening all the German and
Swiss battalions will issue from the Champ de
Mars to slay us; we have but one resource, to
rush to arms and adopt cockades by which to
recognise each other.' Tears were in my eyes,
and I spoke with a vehemence I cannot describe.
My words were received with overwhelming
applause. I continued: 'What colour will you
wear?' Some one cried, 'Choose for us!'
'Shall it be green, the colour of hope, or blue,
the colour of American liberty and democracy?'
Several voices cried, 'Green, the colour of
hope!' Then I exclaimed, 'My friends, the
signal is given! I see the spies and satellites
of the police before me; but at least I will not
fall alive into their hands!' Then, drawing
two pistols from my pocket, I said, 'Let every
citizen follow my example!' I descended from
the table and was smothered with embraces;
some pressed me to their hearts, others bathed
my face with their tears, and one citizen of
Toulouse, fearing for my life, refused to abandon
me. They brought me green ribbons; I first
fixed one in my breast, and distributed the rest
to those who surrounded me." Two days
afterwards the Bastille was taken.

The Café Lemblin is another illustration of
the Palais Royal; but, to find it, you must
reconnoitre from the garden and ascend to the first
floor. It was first opened in 1805, and owes its
name to a waiter of the Café de la Rotonde. At
first it was nothing but a poor second-rate place,
kept by a person named Péron; but Lemblin
having bought the café very cheaply, employed
the architect Alavoine—he who built the extinct
plaster elephant in the Place de la Bastille—to
decorate it. At that time it was on the ground
floor—occupied now bya ready-made clothes-shop
—immediately above the Café des Aveugles; it
soon became fashionable, and in 1814 was in
great vogue. In the daytime artists and men of
letters took their coffee and chocolate there—
Jouy, the Hermit of the Chaussée d'Antin,
Boieldieu, the composer, and Brillat-Savarin, the
author of the Physiologie du Goût, being among
the number; in the evening the military thronged
to the tables, the "immortalised" General Cambronne
being there to affirm or deny the memorable
words ascribed to him at the battle of Waterloo,
that the Guards die, but don't surrender.
In the following year the Café Lemblin became
celebrated for the number of duels which were
originated there between officers of the royal army
and soldiers of the empire. Scarcely a day passed
without its "partie carrée"—the frequenters of
the café having scarcely any other object than
the amiable one of provoking each other to fight.
This belligerent reputation has long since
subsided, and, though the pupils of the Polytechnic
School keep up the traditions of the place—by
talking of the duels of the olden time—the chief
attraction of the Café Lemblin is the excellent
coffee you get there.

Close to the Palais Royal, but not in it, nor
at present where it originally stood, is the Café
de la Régence, the head-quarters of chess. This
café dates from the year 1718, and derives its
name from the epoch. It seems to have been
chosen by common consent, from the day of its
foundation, as the arena for those duels which
do no greater harm than consume an enormous