Teaman." Every night, precisely at the midnight
hour, the Teaman mixes his own Souchong
and Hyson, to the great admiration of surrounding
coffee-drinkers, who, like most Frenchmen,
look upon the beverage as a bitter, styptic, and
disagreeable mixture.

There are more cafés on the Boulevarts than
along any other continuous line of street in
Paris; but, as the greater part of the theatres
are there, and as they form a lounge or drive
which almost surrounds the city, this is only
natural. Not many of them, however, are
historical, though if all could be told that has
taken place within them, few histories would
be more amusing. The Café Tortoni has
souvenirs of great men who were its habitués:
Prince Talleyrand foremost amongst them, who,
with his fashionable friend, Montrond the
Brummel of Paris, constantly went there to
see the famous Spolar play at billiards. This
man, originally a lawyer at Rennes, exchanged
the coif for the cue, and ceasing to aspire to
legal dignity became professor of billiards,
Tortoni giving him bed and board. On one
occasion, Talleyrand backed him for forty
thousand francs to play against one of his
friends, a receiver-general of the department
of the Vosges, who prided himself on his
proficiency in the game. Spolar easily won the
match.

It often happens—nine times out of ten, indeed
—that the first projector of an undertaking is
not the one who profits by it. This was the case
with Velloni, the Neapolitan, who came to Paris
in 1798, and set up an establishment for ices at
the corner of the Rue Taitbout, on the Boulevart
Italien, and in other parts of Paris. Though
the novelty pleased, Velloni's affairs did not
prosper, and Tortoni, one of his assistants,
became his successor, with what success all the
world knows. The popularity of this café is,
indeed, so great, that when two Frenchmen meet
a thousand leagues from France, and appoint
a place for meeting again, their rendezvous is
sure to be at Tortoni's. A few years ago the
Café de Paris used to be an almost equally
celebrated trysting-place, but when we looked for it
the other day, a tailor's shop occupied the site.
One of the most curious types of the Café
Tortoni used to be a waiter named Prevost, whose
back was as supple as his conscience, and who
always bowed to the ground when he spoke to
a customer, with "Pardon! pardon! mille fois
pardon. Has Monsieur had the kindness to
desire anything?" In handing back change,
Prevost generally kept the greater part, and,
if reminded of the fact, would bow as low
as before, and once more beg a thousand pardons.

The Café Riche, not a hundred yards from
Tortoni's, is the beau ideal of a Parisian café
of the present day, and is frequented by the
best literary and artistical society, who are
careless what they pay. The list, if cited,
would comprise the names of every novelist,
feuilletoniste, and artist, of any pretension; and
more witty sayings fly about of an evening at
the Café Riche than are uttered in all the Paris
salons put together. The Café des Variétés is
another agreeable lounge, where the frequenters
are more exclusively dramatic, though journalism
is also fully represented. It is not often
that a Parisian café has a reputation for
dulness, but, according to M. Delvau, the Café
Cardinal, at the corner of the Rue Richelieu,
boasts, in this respect, a bad pre-eminence.
"They play," he says, "at chess and dominoes
here, apparently the same as at other cafés.
But this is only a pretext. You may pass the
Café Cardinal about twelve or one o'clock, on
your way to the Bourse or elsewhere. You
pay your visits or execute your business, and
you pass by again, and see precisely the same
people and in the same attitudes you saw at
first. There they are, seated before a demitasse,
which has marked all the degrees of the
thermometer, before a chope of beer which gets
staler and staler, before a stagnant glass of
lemonade, before a petit-verre that is at last
drained to the uttermost drop. All their time
seems to be passed in disputing about the
merits of public men—artists, actors, and others
—none of which they recognise."

For other specimens of the genuine French
café, the visitor may be commended to the
Café du Helder, where there are no end
of billiard-tables, to the Café Véron, to the
Café de Suède, and to several more on these
same Boulevarts; but, if the visitor be an
Englishman, his own instincts will lead him
to Hill's Tavern, on the Boulevart des
Capucines. Everything specially English is to be
had there—roast beef, pickled salmon, rump-
steak pudding, York ham, Wiltshire bacon,
Cheddar cheese, pale ale, and double stout.
But there is another peculiarity at Hill's Tavern,
which consists in the nomenclature and
decoration of the cabinets particuliers, or private
supper-rooms. Over the door of each of these
privileged apartments appears the portrait of
some great poet, English, French, Spanish,
German, or Italian; so, according to the mood
you may chance to be in, you may sup with
Shakespeare, Calderon, Byron, Molière, Dante,
or Ariosto.

All the cafés which have been enumerated are
frequented by those who mix more or less in
good society; but some remain to be mentioned
where the guests, however joyous and hearty,
are not exactly the sort of people you are in the
habit of sitting down with after dinner. The word
"café," indeed, is not their designation—"estaminet"
or "cabaret" supplying its place. La
Californie stands at the head of this class. The
locus in quo of this establishment is somewhere
between the Rue la Vanvres and the Chaussée
du Maine, that is to say, in the 14th
Arrondissement of Paris, a little to the south of the
cemetery of Mont Parnasse, and not far
westward from the Barrier d'Enfer. To reach it from
the Chaussée du Maine you turn down the Rue
de Vanvres, keeping on the left-hand side of the
street, and after passing some dirty dilapidated
houses washed with yellow ochre, garnished