During the nineteenth century the caf lifestyle rose to new heights, through changes in French society, such

as the emergence of the middle class and industrialization. While the century evolved, the caf evolved along with it. Though there had been cafes in France before the year 1800, the caf took on a whole new lifestyle during the nineteenth century. The type of clientele and offerings changed. As France became more industrialized, cafes grew to be places visible to everyone. With the world becoming a smaller place, alcohols from the Caribbean and other exotic places were available. Although the middle class indirectly provided the cafes with money, they did not approve of their existence. They saw it as a crude way to spend money because it brought ones private life into the public. From this distaste, stemmed the temperance movement and prohibitionism. In Zolas The Ladies Paradise, the division of the classes is clear. The main character, Denise, is a prime example of what the middle class wanted in a salesgirl. She earned her money honestly, and then spent it on her family. She didnt waste her money on frivolous things, like alcohol. It is also clear how Zola wanted the caf to be depicted. The caf was a dark place where all kinds of depravity endured. It was energetic, but altogether dismal. He counters this image with the bright and vibrant energy of the department store. The caf lifestyle in nineteenth century Paris was one, which grew from the emergence of the bourgeoisie, and the energy, which it provided for the city of Paris, was vital. Cafes existed before the nineteenth century. Infact, they existed more than a hundred years before the year 1800. Probably the very first caf to be a success was Le Procope. It was supposedly founded in 1675 and it soon became a well-known caf because of its famous visitors: Voltaire, Rousseau, Marat, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. By the nineteenth century, Victor Hugo, Paul Czanne and Emile Zola had become regulars at the caf. Cafes came to be a popular place once chocolate, coffee and tea were beginning to be introduced to cabarets and the like, in the latter half of the seventeenth century. Cafes served as a literary forum, as seen in the company kept at many cafes. Many famous authors and poets spent time there. They could gather all they needed for

their latest work right there in the caf. People coming and going made for interesting characters and dialogue. Part of the pleasure and excitement of caf life lies in the bright colors, the play of life, and the fusion of odors.(1) Zola wrote his essay about the Dreyfus affair, Jaccuse in the caf Durand. Cafes also played a part in the news world. Newspapers were distributed among the cafes and in order to be kept up-to-date, one had to spend time conversing with people at a caf. Caf dwellers were always the first to know about everything. Artists, writers, scientists, athletes and others spent time at cafes and the news from all those areas was spread amongst the customers. The heat that a caf generated was more than an apartment would give, and so cafes became like an extension of an apartment. People used it as their living rooms because of the friendly atmosphere and warmth. One can imagine that a business meeting would be much more enjoyable in a caf than in a cold, dark apartment room. In the eighteenth century, the alcohol trade was a large part of the economy. Wine and beer were the most widely consumed drinks in Paris. Parisians drank far less liquor than East European societies appear to have consumed and they drank far more wine than stronger alcohols.(2)

After tea, coffee and chocolate became available items, cafes could then add things to their menus. Spiced teas or coffees, brandy and other liqueurs were of demand in Paris. Beer, wine and brandy were all made in France at the time and could be readily imported from all corners of France to Paris. Cafes got their name from coffee and it was by far the most common drink sold in cafes, but the prices were not low at all. When cafes started to appear, it started out as a place where the elite would come to drink and be social. The prices were just right for people of middle-class or upper class stature. The poor were welcome to spend their money in a caf, but most of the time stuck to their taverns and inns during the day. Cafes were dressed up as elegant social drinking parlors, where mirrors and chandeliers graced the room. It was such luxury that only an elite rich man,

or artisan, could be expected to be seen there. As with cabarets and other drinking places, nighttime was the primary time of day for customers. Brandy seems to have begun and ended the day. Some police ordinances suggested that cafes tended regularly to stay open later than the curfew, a practice that they abhorred. Whatever the reason for this, cafes certainly figured more prominently after dark than during the day. (3)

Although cafes started out with iconography, which reinforced the elegance of the elite, people soon became wary of the behavior that the cafes were supporting. Although the term alcoholism wasnt coined until the mid-nineteenth century, the concerns about alcoholics and their violent behavior was a topic of discussion in the eighteenth century. The upper classes used drink and drunkenness as an explanation for the destitute conditions of the lower classes. Drink explained away the reasons why the lower classes were failures and completely undisciplined people. The people, who spent time at taverns and especially cafes, were being defined as a dangerous class of people. The poor were the ones who spent hours a night at the cafes, while the rich still socialized at the same cafes during the day. City police were always careful of the cafes at night, mostly because they never abided by the curfew for public drinking places. The number of cafes grew during the eighteenth century, but didnt really boom until after the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. In 1825, there were 3,000 cafes in the city of Paris. By 1869, there were 4,000 cafes. And it didnt stop there. The numbers only grew, and peaked during the years between the two World Wars. The prodigious amount of alcohol consumed toward the turn of the century was just one notorious part of the change. In the belle poque the French not only drank more than ever in their history but also drank more as a social pastime - in by far the most drinking places than any other country in the world. By 1900, Paris had an all-time high number of cafes 27,000, which, together with wineshops and cabarets gave it more drinking places than any other major city in the world. (4)

By the mid to late nineteenth century, the caf was meant for lower class people; the factory workers. The once beautiful elegant drinking spots, were now dirty and dark; a part of the underworld of Paris society. They were now on the long boulevards of the city, where anyone could buy a beer and everyone could see them. The middle class money involved in the economy provided cafes with all types of alcohol. There were different types of cafes as well. Some which didnt have spiced rum, or some which specialized in variations of coffee and tea. This variety was opening up a new outlet for the working class, blue-collar people. In the wake of industrialization, some changes occurred. Time became regulated and the day had a specific schedule to it, according to where you worked. Before this, leisure in general wasnt something everyone had in their lives. The rich had time to spare, which they used to their liking. But once the day had a schedule, the workers could also have time for leisure. Certainly leisure in itself is a product of industrial civilization. Through mechanization, concentration, and increasing division and organization of productive processes, a more distinct time for work, as opposed to time off the job, is created. (5)

Since Saturdays were payday for 85% of Parisian workers and Sunday was a day off from work, Saturday nights were the night out for people. Cafes were filled with people on Saturday evenings and nights, and also holiday evenings. Sunday was a time for going to church and spending time with families. But even families were welcome in the caf. The caf wasnt just a place for older men to wash away their problems with alcohol and women. Increasingly, as stated before, the caf was becoming a place for the lower class, but children could be seen in a caf during the day or early evenings. In the faubourgs were many worker cafes that drew few nonworkers. Habitus played checkers, dominoes, cards, and backgammon, smoked

and talked, drank black coffee and beer, red wine and absinthe. Wives and children often came, too, partaking not just of the sociability but also of the heat and light that were luxuries in the working-class household. Clients joined in singing, especially the refrains, but festive abandon was rarely in evidence. Drinks were nursed along for hours, the small sums available for entertainment being carefully calculated. Most people left by ten or eleven at night. (6)

Cafes were also a meeting place for bachelors. These unmarried men often met their future wives at a caf. And the caf owner was not only present at some weddings, but they were seen as respectable people, who made their own living without the help of upper class money. The growing trend of the lower classes using these public cafes as places for parts of their private lives was disturbing to the middle and upper classes. French upper class society was becoming more private, while the working-class relied more heavily on street sociability. This created a strain between the classes. The caf became the focal point of the controversies surrounding class division. The new boulevard culture of Bohemian Paris was said to have a decrease in bourgeois domesticity. The reality was that the lower classes didnt have the home life that the other classes did have. The hovels that most workers called home were dark, cold and dreary. The caf was bright and warm, a place where people socialized and a sense of community was prevalent. When one walked into a caf, people greeted you and many were friends you saw on a daily basis, even if you didnt work with them. It was this publicness of ones private life that bothered the middle and upper classes. In the cafes, Georges Montorgueil testified, there reigned a kind of freedom and openness in the American manner: men kept their hats on, dressed as casually as they liked, and smoked cigars. To join the rabble from time to time was apparently a refreshing flight from the predictable rituals of a restricted upper class. (7)

But not only did the working class frequent cafes merely because they did not wish to go home, they also enjoyed the luxuries around them in a caf. The new feeling of having their own aspirations to greatness was started in cafes. Along with this pride in having something they once did not have, came a sense of comfort. Cafes became the place where gossip started and stopped. When visiting a caf, customers felt comfortable enough to discuss matters that were once confined to the home, such as family troubles or problems between couples. This shows the emergence of the right to privacy in public because of changing mores. People felt so at home in a caf, that they expected privacy there like they did at their home. So, the lovers quarrels and arguments that took place in a caf were considered private, although gossip obviously didnt stop dead in its tracks. This proletarian sense of privacy was not purely personal and individual in the middle-class sense. Instead it had a communal and class basis. (8) The caf was a transitional space between the public life of eighteenth century laboring people and the privacy of the late twentieth century working class. (9)

So, the difference between private and public life was becoming blurry and the middle and upper class disapproved of this change. They also felt offended by the alcohol devoured by men in cafes. France was not the worst off in terms of drunkenness; England and the Eastern nations consumed much more alcohol than France. Still, the police were wary of cafes and the people drifting from one to the other late at night. Some people became violent and this behavior was completely unacceptable, even to most of the working class. There were ordinances in each city about curfews and drunkenness. If someone was very drunk and showed it, they probably spent the night in the jail. And especially if they were violent and drunk, the police charged them with it as a crime and they spent more time in jail. Older men of about the age of forty or fifty were the most likely to be charged with this crime, or crimes relating to it. Women who were prostitutes or vagrants were the other group most likely to be found in jail because of drunkenness.

The invention of the term alcoholism in the middle of the nineteenth century allowed the middle classes to condemn the insurgency and hostility of the lower classes with scientific objectiveness. But even before then the elites were using drink and its abuses to explain the impoverished condition of the lower classes in terms of their own failure and indiscipline. (10)

The temperance movement, although not prevalent in France, became a cause on the part of upper class women. Upper class women were the ones who were most adamant against alcohol and the deviant behavior that followed its usage. They set up rallies and speeches so that everyone would understand their plight. Upper class men were also against the caf lifestyle. The middle class was a different story. Most of them had similar opinions to the upper class, but some men were involved in the caf lifestyle. This was called slumming. Men in the middle class who enjoyed being with women of the lower class and spent their time and money on them, just to feel like they were going against the grain of their class description. Throughout Zolas novel, The Ladies Paradise, there are characters that present themselves to be historically accurate. Denise, the main character, had troubles in her young life and had to move to Paris with her two younger brothers. Since she is the oldest in the family, she must provide for her brothers until they are old enough. She works at a department store and earns money, enough to make ends meet. She takes responsibility for everything and doesnt waste her money for anything or anyone. She is the perfect example of what her middle class employer would want for an employee, and what the middle class wants in women her age and of her status. She earns respect, even though the gossipmongers keep wagging their tongues because of the love story between her and her boss. Her boss, Mouret, is a prime example of the middle class man who goes slumming often. He does his job, but then visits the cafes after work. He spends time with women of the lower class, as if he were courting them. An older woman, who is known for being a mistress, believes he wants to marry her, when infact Mouret plans to ask Denise to marry him. Denises refusal to marry him comes about for many reasons. We discover her feelings for Mouret are genuine, but she cant just say yes. He is a middle-

class man of some wealth. She is able to marry him, but would it be proper for her to marry a man who had been known to slum often? Probably not. And so, she decides that it wouldnt be right to marry him. He, in the end of course, lets her win and eventually they do marry, but only after she gets her way. This story is one that could have played itself out historically. Zola took what he knew from his life, his history, and put it to words in his novel. The caf is mentioned in the book as an energetic place where Denise does not fit in at all. Its a dark energy that captivates Denise. The noise laughs, calls, the clatter of plates and dishes was deafening; the candles were flaring and guttering in the draught from the windows, while moths were fluttering about in the air warmed by the smell of food and cut through by sudden gusts of icy wind. (11) Denise, who detested noise, smiled none the less, tasting the joy of no longer thinking in the midst of all this noise. (12)

Other characters show variety in the caf and alcohol lifestyle. Hutin, a young man who also works at the department store where Denise works, is often seen at cafes and restaurants. He is the stereotype of a younger man who spends more time at cafes than at his job. Denise is fascinated with Hutin and the chaos that is his life. When Denise is seen with Hutin, her reputation is discussed among all the other men who work at the department store. They talk about trivial things that might or might not be true. Even though this is idle gossip, it is enough to get her fired from her job. Gossip continues to surround her when Mouret hires her back, giving her a higher position in the store. Lhomme is also another man slumming it often. It was indeed young Lhomme, surrounded by three dubious-looking women: an old lady in a yellow hat who had the vulgar appearance of a procuress, and two girls under age, little girls of about thirteen and fourteen, swaying their hips, and embarrassingly insolent. He was already

very drunk, and was banging his glass on the table and talking of thrashing the waiter if he didnt bring some liqueurs immediately. (13)

Lienard and Deloche, also, were men who were more normal than any others. They spent time with each other, at work and at the cafes, but because they were not wealthy middle class men it was expected of them. After work they spent most of their time at the Caf Saint-Roch. Empty during the day, at about half-past eight this caf would fill up with a great crowd of shop assistants, the crowd let out into the street through the big doorway in the Place Gaillon. From then on, there was a deafening noise of dominoes, laughter, and shrill voices, bursting out in the midst of the thick pipe smoke. Beer and coffee flowed. Seated in the left-hand corner Lienard would ask for the most expensive drinks, while Deloche made do with a glass of beer which he took four hours to consume. (14)

All these descriptions are historically accurate. Zola did a very good job to include details that help you understand what it was like to visit a caf. Zola includes the class division surrounding the caf, as well as every other topic relevant to nineteenth century Paris. The facts shown previously support his novel and the details. One can take Zola and use it as historical fact almost, because it is so accurate. Zola uses these details to show how different life was for the lower classes compared to the upper classes. The caf, as earlier stated, had a dark energy. But the vibrancy of the department store was also important to Paris life. Both were vital to the energy of the city. This duality gave the city something special, something that no other city had. For this reason, when we hear the word caf, we automatically think of Paris. Paris had the most cafes, more than any other city, but yet it was the atmosphere that exuded from this lifestyle that pervaded the city with its energy. The caf has become a cultural icon for France, even if at first it started out as something thought of as disgusting and bawdy. France could not be thought of the same way if there werent any cafes. The evolution of the caf and its lifestyle it

provided for the society is incomparable. It wasnt a war, or a coup detat, but it was a revolution of sorts. A gradual revolution of the culture and society.

Endnotes 1 - page 9 from Literary Cafes of Paris 2 - page 205 from Public Drinking and Popular Culture in 18th Century Paris 3 - pages 170-71 from Public Drinking and Popular Culture in 18th Century Paris 4 - page 28 from Pleasures of the Belle poque: Entertainment and Festivity in turn of the Century France 5 - page 123 from The Emergence of Leisure 6 - page 97 from Pleasures of the Belle poque: Entertainment and Festivity in Turn of the Century France 7 - page 93 from Pleasures of the Belle poque: Entertainment and Festivity in Turn of the Century France 8 - page 55 from The World of the Paris Caf: Sociability among the French Working Class 9 - page 58 from The World of the Paris Caf: Sociability among the French Working Class 10 - page 10 from Public Drinking and Popular Culture in 18th Century Paris 11 - pages 143-44 from The Ladies Paradise 12 - page 144 from The Ladies Paradise 13 - page 144 from The Ladies Paradise 14 - page 282 from The Ladies Paradise

Bibliography 1. Brennan, Thomas - Public Drinking and Popular Culture in Eighteenth Century Paris, Princeton University Press, copyright 1988 2. Fitch, Noel Riley - Literary Cafes of Paris, Starrhill Press, copyright 1989 3. Haine, W. Scott The World of the Paris Caf: Sociability among the French Working Class, 1789 1914, Johns Hopkins University Press, copyright 1996 4. Harrison, Brian Drink and the Victorians, Faber and Faber, copyright 1971 5. Marrus, Michael The Emergence of Leisure, Harper and Row, copyright 1974 6. Oberthur, Mariel Cafes and Cabarets of Montmartre, Peregrine Smith Books, copyright 1984 7. Rearick, Charles Pleasures of the Belle poque: Entertainment and Festivity in Turn of the Century France, Yale University Press, copyright 1985 8. Zola, Emile The Ladies Paradise, Oxford University Press, copyright 1995

The Evolution of the Caf and Alcohol in Bohemian Paris

Elizabeth Zirk History 235 Chalmers November 12, 2001