Matters came to a head in 1679, when an ingenious attempt by the physicians of Marseilles to discredit coffee took the form of having a young student, about to be admitted to the College of Physicians, dispute before the magistrate in the town hall, a question proposed by two physicians of the Faculty of Aix, as to whether coffee was or was not prejudicial to the inhabitants of Marseilles.
The thesis recited that coffee had won the approval of all nations, had almost wholly put down the use of wine, although it was not to be compared even with the lees of that excellent beverage; that it was a vile and worthless foreign novelty; that its claim to be a remedy against distempers was ridiculous, because it was not a bean but the fruit of a tree discovered by goats and camels; that it was hot and not cold, as alleged; that it burned up the blood, and so induced palsies, impotence, and leanness; "from all of which we must necessarily conclude that coffee is hurtful to the greater part of the inhabitants of Marseilles."
Thus did the good doctors of the Faculty of Aix set forth their prejudices, and this was their final decision upon coffee. Many thought they overreached themselves in their misguided zeal. They were handled somewhat roughly in the disputation, which disclosed many false reasonings, to say nothing of blunders as to matters of fact. The world had already advanced too far to have another decision against coffee count for much, and this latest effort to stop its onward march was of even less force than the diatribes of the Mohammedan priests. The coffee houses continued to be as much frequented as before, and the people drank no less coffee in their homes. Indeed, the indictment proved a boomerang, for consumption received such an impetus that the merchants of Lyons and Marseilles, for the first time in history, began to import green coffee from the Levant by the ship-load in order to meet the increased demand.
Meanwhile, in 1669, Soliman Aga, the Turkish ambassador from Mohammed IV to the court of Louis XIV, had arrived in Paris. He brought with him a considerable quantity of coffee, and introduced the coffee drink, made in Turkish style, to the French capital.
The ambassador remained in Paris only from July, 1669, to May, 1670, but long enough firmly to establish the custom he had introduced. Two years later, Pascal, an Armenian, opened his coffee-drinking booth at the fair of St.-Germain, and this event marked the beginning of the Parisian coffee houses. The story is told in detail in chapter XI.
The custom of drinking coffee having become general in the capital, as well as in Marseilles and Lyons, the example was followed in all the provinces. Every city soon had its coffee houses, and the beverage was largely consumed in private homes. La Roque writes: "None, from the meanest citizen to the persons of the highest quality, failed to use it every morning or at least soon after dinner, it being the custom likewise to offer it in all visits."
"The persons of highest quality" encouraged the fashion of having cabaréts à caffé; and soon it was said that there could be seen in France all that the East could furnish of magnificence in coffee houses, "the china jars and other Indian furniture being richer and more valuable than the gold and silver with which they were lavishly adorned."
In 1671 there appeared in Lyons a book entitled The Most Excellent Virtues of the Mulberry, Called Coffee, showing the need for an authoritative work on the subject—a need that was ably filled that same year and in Lyons by the publication of Philippe Sylvestre Dufour's admirable treatise, Concerning the Use of Coffee, Tea, and Chocolate. Again at Lyons, Dufour published (1684) his more complete work on The Manner of Making Coffee, Tea, and Chocolate. This was followed (1715) by the publication in Paris of Jean La Roque's Voyage de l'Arabie Heureuse, containing the story of the author's journey to the court of the king of Yemen in 1711, a description of the coffee tree and its fruit, and a critical and historical treatise on its first use and introduction to France.
La Roque's description of his visit to the king's gardens is interesting because it shows the Arabs still held to the belief that coffee grew only in Arabia. Here it is:
There was nothing remarkable in the King's Gardens, except the great pains taken to furnish it with all the kinds of trees that are common in the country; amongst which there were the coffee trees, the finest that could be had. When the deputies represented to the King how much that was contrary to the custom of the Princes of Europe (who endeavor to stock their gardens chiefly with the rarest and most uncommon plants that can be found) the King returned them this answer: That he valued himself as much upon his good taste and generosity as any Prince in Europe; the coffee tree, he told them, was indeed common in his country, but it was not the less dear to him upon that account; the perpetual verdure of it pleased him extremely; and also the thoughts of its producing a fruit which was nowhere else to be met with; and when he made a present of that that came from his own Gardens, it was a great satisfaction to him to be able to say that he had planted the trees that produced it with his own hands.
The first merchant licensed to sell coffee in France was one Damame François, a bourgeois of Paris, who secured the privilege through an edict of 1692. He was given the sole right for ten years to sell coffees and teas in all the provinces and towns of the kingdom, and in all territories under the sovereignty of the king, and received also authority to maintain a warehouse.
To Santo Domingo (1738) and other French colonies the café was soon transported from the homeland, and thrived under special license from the king.
In 1858 there appeared in France a leaflet-periodical, entitled The Café, Literary, Artistic, and Commercial. Ch. Woinez, the editor, said in announcing it: "The Salon stood for privilege, the Café stands for equality." Its publication was of short duration.
Chapter VI
THE INTRODUCTION OF COFFEE INTO ENGLAND
The first printed reference to coffee in English—Early mention of coffee by noted English travelers and writers—The Lacedæmonian "black broth" controversy—How Conopios introduced coffee drinking at Oxford—The first English coffee house in Oxford—Two English botanists on coffee
English travelers and writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were quite as enterprising as their Continental contemporaries in telling about the coffee bean and the coffee drink. The first printed reference to coffee in English, however, appears as chaoua in a note by a Dutchman, Paludanus, in Linschoten's Travels, the title of an English translation from the Latin of a work first published in Holland in 1595 or 1596, the English edition appearing in London in 1598. A reproduction made from a photograph of the original work, with the quaint black-letter German text and the Paludanus notation in roman, is shown herewith.
Hans Hugo (or John Huygen) Van Linschooten (1563–1611) was one of the most intrepid of Dutch travelers. In his description of Japanese manners and customs we find one of the earliest tea references. He says:
Their manner of eating and drinking is: everie man hath a table alone, without table-clothes