INTRODUCTION INTO EUROPE. II 



The first Coffee-house was opened in Paris, in 1672, 

 by an Armenian, at the fair of St. Germaine, Meeting 

 with considerable success, he was encouraged to open 

 another at the Quai d'Ecole, where he was subsequently- 

 succeeded by another, but who, owing to a lack of 

 address and a proper place to serve it in, was soon com- 

 pelled to relinquish the business. About 1675 an enter- 

 prising Frenchman, Ettienne d'Alep, fitted up spacious 

 apartments in the Rue des Italienes, with Oriental mag- 

 nificence for the purpose of catering to the public taste 

 for coffee. This Cafe — as it was called — was the first of 

 these now famous institutions, was furnished in the most 

 elegant and expensive manner, ornamented with rich 

 tapestries, mirrors, pictures, divans and costly lustres, 

 tea and chocolate being also sold in it. This style of 

 coffee-house multiplied in a very short time in the gay 

 city, and were regularly frequented by people of fashion, 

 artists, men of letters and politicians, the Cafe Procope 

 in particular becoming immortalized from its being 

 patronized by Voltaire, Moliere, Bolieau, Fontaine and 

 other Encyclopedists, while another, the Cafe de la 

 Regence, became the Mecca of chess players. In a brief 

 period these coffee-houses had increased to nearly three 

 hundred in Paris alone, the Cafes eventually becoming 

 dangerous rivals to the Cabarets, finally becoming the 

 cradle of the modern clubs, it being in one of these coffee- 

 houses — the Cafe Procope — that Camille Desmoulins 

 was wont to deliver his stirring addresses. But, as in the 

 East, at first, coffee here again met with considerable 

 opposition. Madame Sevigne presuming " that coffee 

 and other poisons would soon go out of fashion." 



The use of coffee as a beverage is claimed to have 

 been known in England prior to its introduction into 

 France, and by some authorities even before the return 



