Tea at Trianon: The Coffee Houses of Queen Anne’s London

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, April 13, 2024

The Coffee Houses of Queen Anne’s London

From English Historical Fiction Authors:

By the turn of the eighteenth century the coffee houses of London had become the great meeting-places of the capital – for relaxation and for stimulation. Whether your drink of choice was coffee, chocolate, or expensive tea, it was here you met with your friends and encountered strangers; where you could exercise your wit, pick up the latest news, sound forth your political opinions, and hear the latest spicy gossip as it did the rounds. Some characters (like Medley in Etherege’s The Man of Mode) were news bulletins in themselves, circulating scandal as a currency – one that gained value in the telling – perhaps to crash by tomorrow. A French traveller found London’s coffee houses remarkable: “You have all manner of news there: you have a good fire, which you may sit by as long as you please; you have a dish of coffee; you meet your friends for the transaction of business – and all for a penny, if you don’t care to spend more.” (Henri Misson, 1717).

Coffee houses had their individual character, and this might change over the course of a day. Early in the morning the news-mongers circulated, spreading and exchanging the overnight intelligence; later, well-informed gentlemen might stroll in and put matters right; by afternoon the atmosphere was perhaps one of after-dinner reflection; then the place would ready itself for the arrival of the wits and the theatrical crowd primed for the adventures of the evening; and by nine the critics might reappear with their judgments on the new play at the Theatre Royal.

First established in London during the Commonwealth, after the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 the coffee houses seem to have gained a reputation for seditious conversation – places that might attract the disaffected. In December 1675 King Charles II issued a proclamation in the London Gazette to suppress all coffee houses as being the haunts of “Idle and disaffected persons” who were spreading “malicious and scandalous reports to the defamation of His Majesties Government . . . speaking evil of things they understand not.” From the following week it would be forbidden for anyone “to keep any publick Coffeehouse, or to utter or sell any Coffee, Chocolet, Sherbett or Tea, or they will answer the contrary at their utmost Perils.” It was a Draconian move against an institution that was becoming popular, and needless to say, this attempt to end what was proving to be a profitable trade for merchants and proprietors alike, was doomed. After a huge outcry the threat was withdrawn.* (*https://www.thegazette.co.uk/all-notices/content/100707). (Read more.)