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Updated: May 19, 2025
The traiteurs, the keepers of caffès, of brothels, of ale-houses, the limonadiers, and the wine-merchants, were his particular favourites. His object in this was, to produce a degree of profligacy in the public manners, and a disgust at industry; and the consequence was, the resort of all ranks to the army, as the easiest and most lucrative profession.
From the style of the conversation which we were accustomed to hear at caffés and tables d'hôte, we should conceive, that the French bulletins, which appeared to us such models of gasconade, were admirably well fitted, not merely to please the taste, but even to regulate the belief, or at least the professions of belief, of the majority of French politicians, with regard to the events they commemorate.
To grasp the hands and hear the voices of their fellow-creatures, to behold streets, caffes, and shops, the tokens of industry, the insignia of life, to taste viands unknown for years, to see the horizon, to feel the breath of heaven, to trace once more those charts of living history, the journals, resume acquaintance with favorite authors, converse together, move unchained, think aloud, this sudden and entire transition awakened a sensation of almost infantile joy.
The lights glittered upon them, and on the brilliant groups spread fan-wise out into the Piazza before the caffès; the scene seemed to shake and waver in the splendor, like something painted. "Oh, their name is Andersen, or something like that; and they're from Helgoland, or some such place. I saw them first in Paris, but we didn't speak till we got to Marseilles.
Here, whether he had dined at the cook-shop, or at his more genteel and gloomy restaurant of the Bronze Horses, it was his custom to lounge an hour or two over a cup of coffee and a Virginia cigar at one of the many caffès, and to watch all the world as it passed to and fro on the quay.
But for the most part the streets were quite empty; and even in the chief piazza, where there was still some belated show of buying and selling, and about the doors of the caffès, where there was a good deal of languid loafing, there was no indecency of noise or bustle There were visibly few people in the place, and it was in decay; but it was not squalid in its lapse.
The ancient temple of St. Mark, the bronze horses of Lysippus, the arched galleries of the Palace, the waters of the Adriatic, the firmament above, and the stones beneath seem instinct with the fame of commercial grandeur, maritime triumphs, and diplomatic prowess; the cheerful arcades that shade the caffes remind us of the "harmless comedy of life" which Goldoni recorded; the flush of sunset on dome, balcony, and canal seems warm with the peerless tints which Titian here caught and transmitted; the crowd of pleasure-seekers recall the music, love, and chivalry, of which this was once the splendid centre; while the shadow of a dark facade whispers of the mysterious oligarchy, the anonymous accusers, the secret council, and the venerable Doge; a more remarkable union of gloom and gayety, of romance and reality, of the beautiful and the tragic, directly suggested by inevitable local associations, cannot be found in the whole range of European travel.
In Venice the very trophies of national life are labelled in a foreign tongue, the caffes of Milan resound with Teutonic gutturals, and under the arcades of Bologna every other face wears the yellow beard of the North; yet the family portraits in the vast palace-chambers, the eyes and dialect of the people, the monumental inscriptions, announce an indigenous and superseded race; their industry, civil rights, property, and free expression in art, literature, and even speech, being forcibly and systematically repressed: while in the mountains of Savoy, the streets of Turin, and the harbor of Genoa, the stir and zest, the productiveness, and the felicity of national life greet the senses and gladden the soul.
In the caffés, which correspond not only to the coffee-houses, but to the taverns of London, you will see modest women, at all hours of the day, often alone, sitting in the midst of the men. In the Palais Royal, at no hour of the night do you witness scenes of gross indecency or riot.
The lyric stage in Italy takes precedence of the dramatic, and in the large cities, Milan, Venice, Genoa, Florence, Rome and Naples, the production of a new opera is considered a national event, forming for many days previous to its production the chief topic of conversation in salons and caffès.
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