| @ / PLCASURES.& ARIS = DAUMIER 4 PICASSO \ / | Barbara Stern Shapird ha the assistance of Anne E. Havinga Essays by Susanna Barrows, Phillip Dennis Cate, and Barbara K. Wheaton foWhoa caf, without newspapers, there would be no Paris. ‘A. Morand, La vie de Paris, Tort the history of French caf would efor ll portal parpones to write the istry of France Willy bonne wad lee Nineteenth-Century Cafés: Arenas of Everyday Life qe Susanna Barrows However diverse ther observations, no commen- {ator on nineteenth-century Paris could overlook its most characteristic fixture: the eafé. Other na- tions, to be sure, had their share and panoply of drinking establishments, bot by common consen~ sus, none replicated the ambience of the French café. Morand may have pushed trth to hyperbole when he claimed, in 1855, thatthe café was “one ofthe great elements of Perisian life, and 30,000, individyals would hang themselves on Sunday night if they were closed, as in London." But his fantasy suggests a fundamental abservtion: the café was the primary theater of everyday life in nineteenth-century France. The scenarios, of course, were as diverse asthe locales themselves, bout all bore witness tothe changing cultures of drink, polities, and distraction, Until the nineteenth century, drink was a luxe tury forthe well-to-do. While the richest of France’s notables could indulge inthe practice of daily drinking, the mass ofthe French population tumed to Liquor only on rare and largely ceremo- nial occasions, on feast days such as Mardi Gras, festivals of saints, marriages, and the like. The ‘taditions associated with drink varied no less than costumes, dialects, or diet; France itself was ‘a patchwork wrought of local custom, linked by a ‘common thread: most of its people lived on the margins of povery. But on those rare days of general drinking, “drunkenness was the general rule. Countless ‘songs and poems beloved by the common people, popular illustrations depicting Mardi Gras, and ample reminiscences reearded by the police beat witness to the ubiquity of inebriation during the “fat days” ofthe Ancien Régime? Drunkenness, even tothe point of vomiting or losing conscious ness, received almost no popular censure. Ina world where spirits in any form were dear, the ability to consume a great deal ona single outing "represented to poor people a badge of prestige and a display of well-being. Middle-classreforn- fers, as late as the 1860s, were mystified by the sight of Parisian workers returning t the city on @ Sunday evening ("the whole family was walking slong perfectly sober until they saw the octri — the tax barriers — then they started to sing, wob ble, and shout”). Local police knew better; they could interpret the behavioral shit with insight (These people were showing of to their neighbors”) Beginning in the 1830, as industry and trans port began to change the nature and volume of, W French production, as toads, waterways, and rail- roads pierced the countryside, the wine trade and the distillation of hae liquors revolutionized French drinking practices, Industrial liquo distilled from beets, sugar, grains, or potatoes, became one ofthe fastest-growing instr in the North of France and gradually lowered the price of spirits othe level of ordinary people's budgets. Improvements in French transport al= lowed producers of wine and spirits to move their products from one comer ofthe caus’ to an- other; Pais was one of the ist beneficiaries of this expansion. Cheap prices fo alcoho, wide- spread and rapid distribution, and persuasive ade vertising broke down many of the particularities associated with local pattems and shythims of drink By midcentury the price of wine, liquor, a beer had dropped dramatically and wow fell within the budgets of all who were not wholly des: titute. Within fory years, drinking passed from the realm ofthe exceptional into the everyday. At 4 very modest price, it olfered laborers an ant dote to the cold, a substitute for filing one’s stomach, and a means for alleviating hunger. Be- ‘cause food and fuel prices remained relatively high and wages relatively stable, alcohol beeamne the sector of working-class budgets that expanded the most rapidly between 1840 and 1900, Survey~ ing workingelaes life inthe 1840s, the Catholic sociologist Paul Leroy-Beauliew wa forced to a= rit that, at least in urban areas, cafés had be= ‘come the “cathedrals ofthe poor.” secular hutches offering comfort, rituals and solace to the dispossessed. Cathedral, indeed but with this difference: the host beng distributed was the sill of Bacchus, not of Chris. And that gilt was richly given; alcoholic consumption tripled be: tween 1840 and 1870, and the variety of aleo- bolic beverages expand according: [Nature's harsh hand further transformed the new world of drink, ln the late 1870s phylloxera stouck French vineyands, Thghout the coun: try, worried winegrowors watched grapes wither ‘onthe vines, andthe national consequences were disastrous, Over ten percent of the French popu lation faced personal ruin, while the ordinary Arinker was forced to choose between an expen sive and usually unpalatable wine and a substi tute aleoholic beverage: beer, absinthe (frst poy ularized by French soldiers returning from Algeria in the 1880s), Vermouth, Bye, rum, or eau-de-vieig ont Dati, Pe Mf he re ‘Thanks tothe implantation of vines from Cali- fornia and tothe French government’ decision to encourage the massive implantation of vineyards in Algeria, wine reappeared onthe tbles and ‘counters of both Paris and the provinces by the 1800s, But the new habits of alcoholic consump tion were not easily sloughed off millions of French citizens simply added wine to their a ready ample intake of aperitif, digestif, cider, and beer. By the tur ofthe century, France, the ration whose international prestige had been slipping since the fall of Napoleon, found itself unsurpassed in at Teast one respect: she had the highest per capita consumption of aleohl ‘This alcoholization ofthe French did nol pass unnoticed by reformers, social erties, scientists, and governmental authorities. Doctor, scientists, and a haneful of public servants hud long been larmed by the troublesome increase in drinking, but widespread awareness of the problems associ- ated with excessive drink came late to France. In 1852 the Swedish physician Magnus Huss coined the word “aleaholis”: his treatise was translated and awarded a prize by the French Académie de Médecine, then dismissed a iit had concerned subtropical bacilli wholely unknown wo France “There may be a good many drunkards in Prance, bt happily there are no aleoholies." Twice dur- ing the reign of Louis Napoleon, the French leg: islature discussed the possibility of instituting a law against public drunkenness, only to reject such legislation as interfering with the liberty of the liquor trade. In 1875, the Grand ditionnaire universel du XIXe stele could stil reassure its sders that “in our country, although drunken: res is not unkove, iis far from having a char- acter as repellent and as nefarious asin England ‘and Ameriea."> Denial of the existence of French “alcoholism” was one way to skie the problem; elaborate dis- ‘inetions drawn between “healthy” and “danger ‘ous forms of aleahol was another, Throughout the century, the French medieal and scientific ued that wine and, to lesser de- ‘ee, beer and cider, were “hygienic drinks — ood for one’s liver, at aid to digestion, a stimu lant for work, a necessity for nursing mothers, a cere for “fatulent appetites. Distilled beverages, ‘especially the industrial alcohols produced in the North, were seen as the culprits that accountedvente cogadide ery {or the rising tatisties of alcoholism. But the sta- tistical exporés and medical lectures did litle to ‘cuth national predileeton for drink: a the nineteenth century drew to a close the French drank more alcohol than any other nation, Much ofthe revolution in drinking was a pub lic spectacle, visible in any one of a dozen types of drinking establishinents all legally subsumed under the category debit de boison. Compased With other nations, the French have always con- sumed a remarkably high percentage oftheir ab ‘cohol outside the confines of the household. As ‘early as the seventeenth century, notables and sturdy bourgeois took ther ibations in the digai- fied surroundings ofthe café, Urban dwellers of the simpler sor, artisans and skilled laborers, found refreshment a less elaborate débis, at ‘wine shops, at taverns, or at cabarets, which were ‘concentrated in working-class faubourgs. But the most popular debite — the goguettes and guin- ucts (suburban and rustie cafés) — lay outside the city limits, because liquor consumed there ‘was nol subject to urhan wurtaxes and henee slightly cheaper. These institutions did almost all, their business on holidays, Sundays (the day for family drinking) and Mondays (the day reserved for male workers honoring "Saint Landi"). Some, like the Californie, served atleast five thousand clients « day ough wine and robust euisine By whatexer name, cafés were closely moni- tored by the government, which requited each proprietor to be licensed by local authorities. By the 1830s a special arm ofthe lew, the police des debits de boisson, watched over the drinking es- blishnents of many cities and large towns. In the countryside, focal minions of the Law, the _garde champétre snd the mayors, exeresed simi- lar functions. Monicipal regulations contolled the hours of commerce (especially the closing times of 10 oF 11 pum. incites, 9 p.m. in rural areas), forbade the sale of drinks during hoy of fees, and counseled proprietors not to permit the singing of political songs or the recitation uf sub versse ballads, In 1835, some 283,000 cafes ‘were sprinkled throughout France. Their distribu- tion was uneven; large cities lke Paris or Lyon boasted most ofthe elite eafés; areas just outside the octvis catered tothe popular classes, eile the eural auberges offered drink 0 local ne ident, fod and lodging tothe traveler. Ina world set into rapid motion, cafés came to fill a cluster of diverse and basic needs. Almost all of them served food, since urban laborers had 9 neither the time nor the means of transport to take their meals at home. No Tess important, they ‘assuaged thirst. Until the late nineteenth century potable water was a scarce commodity in the ur- bn landseape. While Baron Haussmann’: building of the city’s water supply inthe 1850s and 1860s had improved the quality of Parisian tap water, public drinking fountains supply spring water were vietually unknown before the British philanthropist Richard Wallace gave them tothe cepital a decade later. In most workings class neighborhoods there was an average of only one fountain for every fifteen hundred residents." With some justice, French workers regarled water skepticaly as dangerous and a potential, ‘carrier of disease. To be labeled a buseur deat by fellow workers was to be triply insulted: ax someone who was destitute, unmanly, and short= sighted. Working for ong hours at heavy tasks, often sweltering in shops, factories, or alongside dusty construction sites, laborers relied on their cafés to famish the very staff of life food sn tink, ‘The great waves of nineteenth-century migrants France came to regard the café asthe only Fixed point in an unfamiliar universe, Often lit erate, and ilhequipped to navigate about strange tovens and bewildering cities, newcomers, espe= cially those speaking in dialects. learned quickly tw make a map of theie surroundings whose major landmarks were cafés. The very names given to many of these establishments ~ the Golden Lion, the Grapes, the White Sheep bei the most popular — were announced wi raphie signs affixed to their exteriors. These {cons allowed rural migrants tobe reunited wi their fellow villagers within hours oft in cities hundreds of miles away.” And they re- tumed there often, to converse in thet mother tongues. to reenact rituals in part transplanted part weought out ofthe eons ditions oftheir urban labors Cafes constituted, in fact, the place reaus for both day’ andl seasonal workers. In Paris, masons clustered in the débits adjuce the Hatel de Ville, metalworkers gathered in the side streets around the Place de la Bastille, while ‘woodworkers and furnituremakers ava ployment in cabarets dotting the Faubourg St. Antoine, Each ofthese trades hada customary claim tothe specific locales of drink and to the ‘variegated rituals that linked work tothe con= sumption of alcohol. When a new mechanic was fiom their villages,hired in the working-class district of Bellville, the neweomer was obliged to furnish a quand-s?, the ritual buying of rounds of drinks forall the shop's veteran laborers. Parisian moving-men ‘and painters gathered several times each morning for their own special coffee break, white wine, which even today is described as a café des deménageuts. Beyond providing the basic necessities, cafés offered workers specialized networks for ob- taining housing and financial credit, Migrants tramping to towns and lager cities found crowded bout cheap quarters above rural auberges. It was far from unusual to see urban cafés in working: class neighborhoods function also as boarding hhouses oF as informal housing bureaus for would De lodgers. In between pay days, café regulars often asked their proprietors for an ardoise, 8 ‘charge account or small loan fo tide them over to their next payment which often took place at the ‘counters ofthe same cafés, Independent shop keepers and skilled artisans regularly retired to their local débi to seal business arrangements with a tere (a glass), since sharing a drink con- stituted a ritual contract, the customary French equivalent tothe English gentleman's handshake, However arduous the rhythms of labor in the nineteenth century, migrant workers still had time on their hands — evenings, holidays, Sun- days, and in some pars of France, Mondays. Lodged in dreary, crowded quarters, urban work- fers could find in cafés the amenities that thei do- ‘mestic surroundings lacked: hea, light, and dis- traction. Most had been raised in family circles that valued sociability ver privacy; once io- stalled in the city, they tumed quite naturally to the café for their new sense of community. There they could smoke; ifliterate, read newspapers or ‘pamphlets, if literate, be read to; there they ‘could digest and editorialize on the events of the day, or keep in touch — by word of mouth or the rare letter — wi their families in the country- side. As news centers, singing and gambling s0- Cieties, employment centers, housing bureaus, ‘essential half-way spaces between public and pri= vate, branches of the village grafted on the city, as reading rooms and libraries, cafés by the 1850s offered to all but the utely indigent a rmordium of decency and the good life. “Here,” ‘wrote the popular novelist Jules Valles, “One can have all the luxuries ofa millionaire fora few Indeed, the expenditures of workers in such ‘modest pleasure palaces elicited the concer of social reformers and writers onthe social ques- tion as early as the 1840s. Armand Audiganne, René Villerme, and Leroy-Beauliu deeried the improvidence of the laboring clases, who ap- ‘peated all too willing to squander a week's wages ina single evening. Surveys ofthe budgets of art- sans in Pars and other urban areas suggested that increased wages quickly passed into the hands ofthe tavern keepers, and that the laboring, classes would never emulate the thrfy habits of the bourgeoisie. The Parisian Chamber of Com- merce estimated that in 1848 a constriction worker spent more of his eamings on alcobo than on lodging for his family. But their alls fr pru- dence and sobriety found few echoes in popular practice ‘Even more than improvidence, French govern ments feared the dangerous political activities that transpired within the confines of café. Until 1880 all French regimes, be they monarchical, imperial, or republican, rightly viewed the eaba- ret, the goguette the auberge, and the eafé asthe prime places for politcal organization, forthe transmission of news and dangerous ideas, and for the mobilization of strikes and popular pro= test, To the novelist Honoré de Balzac, they were the “parliaments of the people”: tothe politician Leon Gambetta, “the salons of democracy.” Fol- lowing each of France's waves of revolution in the nineteenth century (after 1830, 1848-1851, and 1871), “the strictest surveillance” ofeafés was ‘ordered by governments eager to dismantle forms of working-class and radical social organization. ‘The very militance ofthe French working classes produced its nemesis: vast bureaucracy intent fon recording their every move. Its legacy to twen tioth-century scholar: perhaps the richest set of documents on all aspeets of eafé culture for any county inthe nineteenth century. ‘As cafés grew in number, so did the anxieties ofthe men of order. By 1851, as Napoleon HIT n= stalled a more sophisticated machinery of pliti- cal repression in order to dismantle the Second Republic, he immediatly singled out the café for special surveillance. On December 29, he issued ‘orders that held a sword of Damocles over every dlrnking establishment in the Land. He gave prefect the discretionary power to close dow any cabaret, auberge, or café. Napoleon's motives were frankly political; he held cabarets, espe ily those inthe countryside, responsible forMtoe rou reed “disorders,” the sse of secret societies, an what he called the “progress of despicable passions.” Uniler the twin pretext of polities and immorality any existing café could be closed by prefectoral fat, any new ones refused Kienses to open. With in three years, the number af seh subversive fo- rms ha! been eut from 350,000 to 291,000, ‘As lunchtooms, watering holes, and centers for political mobilization, cafés were multipurpose institutions closely patlered afer the needs of the commen citizen. But to enumerate these ‘ere functions isnot to brig them ack to if. Like X-rays of loved one, such catalogue of cotity records a strutue that, though el, ep- pears lifeless, almost unrecognizable to subject and viewer alike. Cafés were not simply “useful” as clearing stations for people onthe moves they vere the very houses of popular culture, the pr rary arenas of ital, and the central stages for socal drama. The participants wee the regulars, men who assembled a regular hours, greeted ‘eachother with handshakes and secret nick- ames, exchanged ritual gifts in the form of rounds, and ofen occupied for deeades the same place al the same table or counter. The cafés vere ideal settings forthe symbolic reversals of Status and the eration of mock hierarchies.” ‘As highly specialized insition, almost all cafés depended upon a steady clientele, a pate~ ular set of activities (boule, billiards, music, cardplaying, dances, or ~ that cheapest and ‘most dangerous activity — rises brawls}, which Ihave been described as “the duels ofthe pos”). No less ordered were their shythms of commerce Workingmen in cites could be seen fortify themselves ative inthe morning on their way to ork, at noon sharingan aperitif after linc sa- toring a digestif. and at ve in the evening honor ing the “hour of absinthe.” Each ofthese bands of regulars was a ceremonious circle; each had its particulae paroles, By the 1880s the densely tex- tured workinglas slang and patois had became so extensive that a less than a dozen dtionares of French argot found their way into publication worker’ own reminiscences are tbe believed, café discussions represented the most eloguent moments in the discourse of ordinary people Here wee retold the events of the day, in dra ‘mate, playful, musical, or poetic form. Herel borers could grumble aginst harsh foremen, de liver sarcastic gibes against kings, presidents, or emperor; here they could comment on the pee- cadillos of nobles, offer scathing pasties of a priest, local bores, tax collects, meddlesome neighbors, or haughty moraizers. The rch e- shaping of daily experience int café discourse allowed every man tobe something of « Homer, ‘everyday to become a chapter inthe epie drama ofan otherwise unremarkable lie Often underdogs, vitims inthe world of labor, café habitués did more than brig the righty low By their very choice of nicknames, they cou ap- propriate for themselves the symbols of power and authority: Anyone who has worked in nineteenth century archives has been amused by the calor sedoption of aliases tha supplement dhe egal ‘names of nviduals interrogated by the police Like the wearing of a mask, these nicknames served as disguises tothe prying outside word of public order — the word that required each la Borer to ear a iret (labor passport) ~ but were «esily recognizable to members of one's particular circle. The veral equivalent to the disgises adopted in times of Carnaval, these humorous 0- Iriquets often pointed to a mocking or eversl uf social hierarchies. Although most atempes to translate slang are doomed to failure, let me haze ada few examples. Common nicknames inthe 1860s included Emperor af the Drunkands, af the Pigs, Savior ofthe World, President ofthe ‘World in 1860, Mohammed of the Bars, Le Grand Louis, the Cure, or the Pope ofthe Cabaret. Other nicknames evoked masks dirctly: witness Messeurs Hering, Head, Woodcock, Wig Face Baldy the Tesible, Stel-Head. Sill thers su gested anesome aleahalie capacities: Woode Stein, Corkscrew, Son of Faso, and Colery Foot Many cafs even foun thee space baptized in telling ways Places boasting more than one room efien named the more puble space the “Cham ber, and the back toom, reserve forthe inner circle, the “Senate.” Large establishnents with three room differentiated them hy eeference to ane ofthe thie esates af the Ancien Régime In slativey tral times these symbolic re versal of power were hardy more threatening the social and political order than the ital iver sis of Mand Gras. But during periods of revo- latonary protest or ines of severe government re presion, the nature of café rituals could ove from innocuous satire to subversion, frm eiique {0 poplar assaults on the regime. Inthe past ten years, socal historians of mi France hae schly documeated the centrality of the cafés the primary point of political mobili- zation during the Second Republic (1848-1851) eteenth-eenturyDuring the massive insurrection tht followed the coup of Louis Napoleon in December 1851, café ‘owners were among the ringleaders of the rebel- lion, and nearly sity thousand were shat down for alleged subversive political activities between 1852 and 1855.” New laws against sedition made any critique of the regime a rime, be it the sing ing of the Marsellase, the insulting of local nota- bles, the public complaints against unpopular ‘wars or the high cot of bread. Especially in the 1850s, Lovis Napoleon's sys- tem of repression was both sophisticated and se- vere. No less than 26,884 citizens wore arested as dangerous tothe regime; some 9,581 were eventually deported to Algeria or other French penal colonies. But despite these draconian mea sures, he could not wholly eradicate radical crit ques of his regime. OF 528 tial fr “seditious speeches” recorded by the emperor's courts i the 1850s, 377 mentioned the loale in which the ‘offensive language had been voiced. The majority of these verbal assaults transpired in cafés, uberges, and hotels. The seditious speech acts themselves offer a colorful and richly textured picture ofthe manner in which citizens chose to voice their disaffection in a period of massive re~ pression. The language itself was “rough”: “Nar poleon is an assole, con”; I would like to rub huis face with shit”; “The Empress Eugen whore.” Rejecting the bureaucratic and “proper” language of the regime, Napoleon's critics will {ally intertwined political commentary, obscen- ity, the popular language of the marketplace, and the patois oftheir regions. Using icons and images to reinforce their sentiments, dissident Frenchmen spat on images ofthe emperor, in- sulted coins and statues that bore his likeness. How mich had aleahol infact loosened the tongues ofthese critics? When brought to trial. at Teast 150 of them claimed that they had been drunk at the time of the speech. But their defense of inebriation should not be taken at face value, since drunkenness was commonly accepted as a rmtigatng factor that lightened their sentences, ‘During the so-called liberal phase ofthe See~ cond Empire (the decade of the 1860s) the stat- utes against sedition ad the power of prefects to lose cafés remained intact, but the regime be came far more tolerant in practice. By 1870, on the eve ofthe Franco-Prussian war, the number of cafés throughout France had reached some 360,000 — far more than during the Second Re- public. Governmental surveillance of French drinking establishments now focused on a broader range of café activities than polities alo Ticentiousness and drunken comportment found their way into dossiers on “dangerous de bits. But the regime that had tried to eradicate politieal aetvity decided that the rights of Frenchmen to besot themselves orto frequent prostitutes were apparently inalienable. “Then came the France-Prissian War and the ‘Commune. Reacivating the existing machinery of repression, the head ofthe French governme Adolphe Thiers, urged a thorough purge ofall ‘alée whose proprietors or clientele had sympa ‘thized with the Commune or who dared voice e: icism of the new, and largely monarchical, e- ime. The close surveillance was quickly extended tall aspects of café culture. In Now~ ember 1872, the Minister ofthe Interior lashed out at those “veritable schools of depravaton,” the cafés-concerts, Prefects wee instructed to “repress energetically” any establishment that permitted “obscene songs, smutty sketches, a all other items which might compromise moral: the public order." The fllowing year the Na tional Assembly saw ft to declare publie drunk enness a crime and to equate obscenity, immo ity, and vice with revolution. A new hegemony over the nonpoitcal aetivities of citizens becat the order afthe day. Forms af café sociability 1 had been tolerated during the Second Empin the right to intoxicate oneself, to employ wait estes, to install a piano, oF to sing slightly off color dities — were now declared illegal and, teed, associated with politial subversion. Si conflation of politics and moras signaled an phase of state control over the citizen and soci: space, The new restrictions on calés now presumed to enforce not simply political but, infect, a total conte over one's public comportment. Both the law against public drunkenness an the purge of cafés were regarded by France's workers, rep Left as class conspiracies, as secular arms of litical repression. The Societé Frangaise de Te pérance, elablished immediately ater the Co ‘mune, railed repeatedly against the ravages of alcoholism among French workers in both the and the countryside and sponsored competitio ian, and men and women of for the moral reform ofthe “dangerous classe bat not one of ther articles conceded that ale. holism was a disease that could eros class in Until the mid-nineties, the subject of aleoholie