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He wrote them to the Cafe Americain, to Bignon's, to Tortoni's, to the Maison Doree, to the Cafe Riche, to the Helder, to the Cafe Anglais, to the Napolitain, everywhere, everywhere. He wrote them to all the officials of the republican government, from the magistrates to the ministers. And he was happy, perfectly happy. One morning as he was starting out to go to the council it began to rain.
In the twinkling of an eye there was a butchery on the boulevard a quarter of a league long. Eleven pieces of cannon wrecked the Sallandrouze carpet warehouse. The shot tore completely through twenty-eight houses. The baths of Jouvence were riddled. There was a massacre at Tortoni's. A whole quarter of Paris was filled with an immense flying mass, and with a terrible cry. Everywhere sudden death.
And then the charming evenings spent at the theaters and ended at Tortoni's with this truest of "boulevardiers," who knew every one and everything, and whose inexhaustible fund of anecdote was enlivened by a spontaneous easy wit and verve that made his companionship a delight.*
Tortoni's Café, a place that we looked upon as the last link with civilization: Tortoni's, with its blaze of light, looking-glass and gold paint its popping corks and hurrying waiters made a deep and pleasant indent on one's mind, for "to-morrow" meant "the Front" for most of those who sat there.
Captain E shortly after received orders to start for India, where I believe he died of cholera in all probability of FUNK. I do not think that Colonel J would altogether have escaped with impunity, after such a gratuitous insult to an English officer; but he retired into the country almost immediately after the incident at Tortoni's, and could not be found.
Around Tortoni's there hovers too the souvenir of that other gracious and graceful dandy, king of fashion in his day, the count D'Orsay. It was at a breakfast at Tortoni's that the preliminaries were arranged for the famous duel wherein D'Orsay appeared as the champion of the Virgin Mary.
He still wore republican whiskers and his hair very long; his hands, adorned with bunches of hair on each knuckle, showed the power of his muscular system in their prominent blue veins. He had the chest of the Farnese Hercules, and shoulders fit to carry the stocks. Such shoulders are seen nowadays only at Tortoni's.
Three hours later the bride and bridegroom were finishing one of the distinguished Tortoni's most elaborate dinners. Tortoni had protested that it was destructive of the elementary principles of art to order a dinner for eight-thirty at seven o'clock. However, he had not completely failed. The waiters had departed, and Camilla, in dazzling ivory-white, was pouring out coffee.
The antics of our rich countrymen in Paris are portentous in their amazing prodigality, and I fear we are the laughing stock of the shopkeepers there. At the Cafe Riche and Tortoni's I have seen extravagances in ordering expensive wines and viands by my countrymen that made me regret that the fools who were being served were not forced to toil for the mere necessaries of existence.
In many parts of these delightful promenades, double rows of chairs are placed, and persons of the highest respectability come from different quarters and sit for hours in them, amused with observing the happy moving scene around them; the seats on the Boulevard Italien are often occupied by persons of fashion, who arrive in their equipages, then take chairs for an hour or two, whilst their carriages wait for them; the charge for each chair is one sou, but every one takes two, one for the purpose of resting the feet, and generally takes ices which are served from Tortoni's, long celebrated for the supply of that cooling refreshment.
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