It is said to be the oldest café of Paris. It was in 1684 at 13 rue de l’Ancienne Comédie (formerly rue des Fossés Saint Germain) when Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli opened the Café Procope.
This is the oldest café in Paris, and when you enter this grand café and marvel its large chandeliers and mahogany and pine furniture you can feel the atmosphere of three centuries of history. The Café Procope was the birthplace of all of the intellectual upheavals that shook Paris.
Great men made, and still make (along with great women), Procope a magical place.
Procopio, ice cream, coffee and lemonade
The Sicilian Procopio had an ingenius idea in 1674. Because Paris was saturated with taverns and cabarets full of drunks, he decided to open a beautiful place for the refined gentlemen of the court of Louis XIV. His first café was situated on rue du Tournon, and then moved to rue de l’Ancienne Comédie.
Here, you were not served wine, but coffee. In fact, during the years of 1670, the coffee that first came to the big towns of Europe from Yemen made its Paris debut here.
But the place is especially known for its delicious ice cream, which was its greatest success. During this time, ice was taken on cold days from lakes and rivers and stored in ice boxes, and stored in cellars for the summer.
This café is tastefully and elegantly decorated with its marble tables and luminous crystal chandeliers, and their light is delicately reflected in its large mirrors. Here, you feel like you are at the Galerie des Glaces at the Château Versailles.
The Procope pioneered opening its café’s doors to women, which was a first for Paris. The formula created by Procope became a great success. By the year 1700, Paris had some 300 cafés and 1750 cabarets. It was a huge leap forward that caught the attention of the various newspapers of the period.
The most reputed of literary cafés of the 18th century….
The Procope was known not only for its ice creams and coffee, but also for its unique ambiance.
When the French comedy theatre was settled not far from the café in 1689, the Procope quickly became a place for the rendez-vous of literary and theatre critics, writers and philosophers.La Fontaine and Marivaux also frequented it.
It was the most renowned literary café of the 18th century. It was also at Café Procope that Beaumarchais came to hide out while waiting to know how the public would receive his first representation of the Marriage of Figaro that was playing at the Odeon.
It was at the Procope where the idea to create an encyclopedia took place during a conversation between Diderot and Alembert.Meetings and exchanges between regulars such as Voltaire, Rousseau, etc. gave birth to the liberal and progressive ideas of the 18th century.
Revolutionary café then Romantic café
Several years later it was here where revolutionary ideas were exchanged. Robespierre, Danton, Marat got together here often. Subversive ideas borned here that caused the downfall of the monarchy. The printers where Marat edited the revolutionary newspaper, “Friend of the People,” were situated just behind the café. It is said that the decision to attack the Tuileries was made at Procope in June 1792.
It was also here that the first red revolutionary beret appeared; where
Benjamin Franklin wrote a chapter for the American constitution.
Many years later, the Procope became the haunt of the early Romantics. Patrons could run into George Sand, Alfred de Musset, Balzac, Hugo and Théophile Gautier regularlhere. The Café Procope maintained its reputation as a literary hangout for three centuries, welcoming literary geniuses such as Verlaine and Oscar Wilde.
