All About Coffee Part 108

Cyrus Townsend Brady's _The Corner in Coffee_ is "a thrilling romance of the New York coffee market."

Coffee, Du Barry, and Louis XV figure in one scene of the story of _The Moat with the Crimson Stains_, as told by Elizabeth W. Champney in her _Romance of the Bourbon Chateaux_.[354] It tells of the German apprentice Riesener, who a.s.sisted his master Oeben in designing for Louis XV a beautiful desk with a secret drawer, which it took ten years of unremitting industry to execute. At the end, Riesener was to be accepted by his master as a partner and a son-in-law. Little Victoire, who loved to sit in a punt and trail her doll in the waters of the Bievre to see to what color its frock would be changed by the dyes of the Gobelin factory, was then only five, and Madam Oeben twenty-three.

As the years rolled by, Riesener grew to love the mother and not the daughter, who, meanwhile, shot up into a slim girl, not of her mother's beauty, but of a loveliness all her own. Then there was a quarrel because the young apprentice thought the master should have resented the suggestion of M. Duplessis that his wife pose in the nude for the statuettes which were to hold the sconces on the king's desk; and Riesener left in a fine youthful frenzy, vowing he would never return while the _maitre_ lived. The latter, unable to complete the masterpiece which he loved more than anything else on earth, sought death, and perished in the crimson waters of the Bievre.

The _maitre_ had no enemies, but his quarrel with Riesener caused a fear to spring up in the widow's heart that the apprentice might have been guilty of his murder, so she refused to see him when, hearing of his master's death, he returned, stricken with remorse, to finish the desk.

On it were the statuettes modeled in perfect likeness of Mlle. de Vaubernier, a wily little milliner of Riesener's bohemian set who had taken this way to bring herself to the attention of Louis XV. The ruse was successful; and after the acceptance of the desk, there was installed a new _maitresse en t.i.tre_, the notorious Madame Du Barry, erstwhile the pretty milliner, Mlle. de Vaubernier.

Later, Madame Du Barry sent for the now famous _ebeniste_ (cabinet maker); and, when her negro page Zamore admitted him, he found His Majesty Louis XV kneeling in front of the fireplace, making coffee for her while she laughed at him for scalding his fingers. He had been summoned to show the king the mechanism of the secret drawer, so cunningly concealed in the king's desk that no one could find it. But Riesener knew not the secret of his master, who had died without revealing it. Then the red revolution came; and when the pretty pavilion at Louveciennes was sacked, and its costly furniture hurled down the cliff to the Seine, the king's desk, shattered almost beyond repair, was carried to the Gobelins' factory and presented to Mme. Oeben in recognition of her husband's workmans.h.i.+p. Then the secret compartment was found to have been disclosed, and Riesener was absolved by a letter therein, from the _maitre_, who intimated he was about to end it all because of paralysis. Riesener marries the widow and all ends happily.

James Lane Allen, in _The Kentucky Warbler_, tells a tale of the Blue Gra.s.s country and of a young hero who wanders after a bird's note to find romance and the key to his own locked nature. Here is an incident from his first forest adventure:

There was one tree he curiously looked around for, positive that he should not be blind to it if fortunate enough to set his eyes on one--the coffee tree. That is, he felt sure he'd recognize it if it yielded coffee ready to drink, of which never in his life had they given him enough. Not once throughout his long troubled experience as to being fed had he been allowed as much coffee as he craved.

Once, when younger, he had heard some one say that the only tree in all the American forests that bore the name of Kentucky was the Kentucky coffee tree, and he had instantly conceived a desire to pay a visit in secret to that corner of the woods. To take his cup and a few lumps of sugar and sit under the boughs and catch the coffee as it dripped down.... No one to hold him back ... as much as he wanted at last.... The Kentucky coffee tree--his favorite in Nature!

John Kendrick Bangs relates, in _Coffee and Repartee_[355], some amusing skirmishes indulged in at the boarding-house table, between the Idiot and the guests, where coffee served the purpose of enlivening the tilt:

"Can't I give you another cup of coffee?" asked the landlady of the School Master.

"You may," returned the School Master, pained at the lady's grammar, but too courteous to call attention to it save by the emphasis with which he spoke the word "may".

Said the Idiot: "You may fill my cup too, Mrs. Smithers."

"The coffee is all gone," returned the landlady, with a snap.

"Then, Mary," said the Idiot, gracefully turning to the maid, "you may give me a gla.s.s of ice water. It is quite as warm, after all, as the coffee and not quite so weak."

One other little skit remains at the expense of Mrs. Smithers' coffee.

At the breakfast table, where the air, as usual, is charged with repartee, Mr. Whitechoker, the minister, says to his landlady:

"Mrs. Smithers, I'll have a dash of hot water in my coffee, this morning." Then with a glance toward the Idiot, he added, "I think it looks like rain."

"Referring to the coffee, Mr. Whitechoker?" queried the Idiot....

"Ah,--I don't quite follow you," replied the Minister with some annoyance.

"You said something looked like rain, and I asked you if the thing referred to was the coffee, for I was disposed to agree with you,"

said the Idiot.

"I am sure," put in Mrs. Smithers, "that a gentleman of Mr.

Whitechoker's refinement would not make any such insinuation, sir.

He is not the man to quarrel with what is set before him."

"I must ask your pardon, Madam," returned the Idiot politely. "I hope I am not the man to quarrel with my food, either. Indeed, I make it a rule to avoid unpleasantness of all sorts, particularly with the weak, under which category I find your coffee."

_Coffee Quips and Anecdotes_

Coffee literature is full of quips and anecdotes. Probably the most famous coffee quip is that of Mme. de Sevigne, who, as already told in chapter XI, was wrongfully credited with saying, "Racine and coffee will pa.s.s." It was Voltaire in his preface to _Irene_ who thus accused the amiable letter-writer; and she, being dead, could not deny it.

That Mme. de Sevigne was at one time a coffee drinker is apparent from this quotation from one of her letters: "The cavalier believes that coffee gives him warmth, and I at the same time, foolish as you know me, do not take it any longer."

La Roque called the beverage "the King of Perfumes", whose charm was enriched when vanilla was added.

Emile Souvestre (1806-1854) said: "Coffee keeps, so to say, the balance between bodily and spiritual nourishment."

Isid Bourdon said: "The discovery of coffee has enlarged the realm of illusion and given more promise to hope."

An old Bourbon proverb says: "To an old man a cup of coffee is like the door post of an old house--it sustains and strengthens him."

Jardin says that in the Antilles, instead of orange blossoms, the brides carry a spray of coffee blossoms; and when a woman remains unmarried, they say she has lost her coffee branch. "We say in France, that she has _coiffe_ Sainte-Catherine."

Fontenelle and Voltaire have both been quoted as authors of the famous reply to the remark that coffee was a slow poison: "I think it must be, for I've been drinking it for eighty-five years and am not dead yet."

In Meidinger's _German Grammar_ the "slow-poison" _bon mot_ is attributed to Fontenelle.

It seems reasonable to give Fontenelle credit for this _bon mot_.

Voltaire died at eighty-four. Fontenelle lived to be nearly a hundred years. Of his cheerfulness at an advanced age an anecdote is related. In conversation, one day, a lady a few years younger than Fontenelle playfully remarked, "Monsieur, you and I stay here so long, methinks Death has forgotten us." "Hus.h.!.+ Speak in a whisper, madame," replied Fontenelle, "_tant mieux!_ (so much the better!) don't remind him of us."

Flaubert, Hugo, Baudelaire, Paul de k.o.c.k, Theophile Gautier, Alfred de Musset, Zola, Coppee, George Sand, Guy de Maupa.s.sant, and Sarah Bernhardt, all have been credited with many clever or witty sallies about coffee.

Prince Talleyrand (1754-1839), the French diplomat and wit, has given us the cleverest summing up of the ideal cup of coffee. He said it should be "_Noir comme le diable, chaud comme l'enfer, pur comme un ange, doux comme l'amour._" Or in English, "black as the devil, hot as h.e.l.l, pure as an angel, sweet as love."

This quip has been wrongfully attributed to Brillat-Savarin. Talleyrand said also:

A cup of coffee lightly tempered with good milk detracts nothing from your intellect; on the contrary, your stomach is freed by it, and no longer distresses your brain; it will not hamper your mind with troubles, but give freedom to its working. Suave molecules of Mocha stir up your blood, without causing excessive heat; the organ of thought receives from it a feeling of sympathy; work becomes easier, and you will sit down without distress to your princ.i.p.al repast, which will restore your body, and afford you a calm delicious night.

Among coffee drinkers a high place must be given to Prince Bismarck (1815-1898). He liked coffee unadulterated. While with the Prussian army in France, he one day entered a country inn and asked the host if he had any chicory in the house. He had. Bismarck said: "Well, bring it to me; all you have." The man obeyed, and handed Bismarck a canister full of chicory.

"Are you sure this is all you have?" demanded the chancellor.

"Yes, my lord, every grain."

"Then," said Bismarck, keeping the canister by him, "go now and make me a pot of coffee."

This same story has been related of Francois Paul Jules Grevy (1807-1891), president of France, 1879-1887. According to the French story, Grevy never took wine, even at dinner. He was, however, pa.s.sionately fond of coffee. To be certain of having his favorite beverage of the best quality, he always, when he could, prepared it himself. Once he was invited, with a friend, M. Bethmont, to a hunting party by M. Menier, the celebrated manufacturer of chocolate, at Noisiel. It happened that M. Grevy and M. Bethmont lost themselves in the forest. Trying to find their way out, they stumbled upon a little wine house, and stopped for a rest. They asked for something to drink.

M. Bethmont found his wine excellent; but, as usual, Grevy would not drink. He wanted coffee, but he was afraid of the decoction which would be brought him. He got a good cup, however, and this is how he managed it:

"Have you any chicory?" he said to the man.

"Yes, sir."

"Bring me some."

Soon the proprietor returned with a small can of chicory.

"Is that all you have?" asked Grevy.

"We have a little more."