Manoury's coffee house

Café Manoury stood at the Place de l'École. In the Middle Ages, this square was one of Paris' main entrances. Until c. 1413 the name of the square was Place des Marchands, then it was changed into the present name. One wall of the square was formed by a castle called La Samaritaine, rising out of the Seine. La Samaritaine takes its name from an old water pump near the Pont Neuf. The pump was driven by wheels in the river, it pumped water to the fountains in the neighbourhood. It was decorated with the woman of Sameria giving a drink of water to Jesus.

In the 19th c., the square had a face-lift. The castle was demolished and a row of buildings made room for a department store, La Samaritaine. Between 1903 and 1930 it was expanded several times; today it is one of the biggest stores of Paris. The café on the roof of store number two offers a 360 degree view of Paris.

Department store La Samaritaine

Manoury's premise, Place de l'Ecole 1, on the corner of Quai du Louvre no. 14, was 15 metres by 31. Pascal, an Armenian, had it built as a coffee house -in the 17th c. coffee was a new drink in Europe, introduced by traders from the East; among them were Armenians. Pascal sold his Café de l'Ecole to the Frenchman Marchand. Marchand lived upstairs. The café was run by Berthauld, from 1766 on by Manoury, before the first waiter. In Manoury's time most people called it Café Manoury.

Not long after 1787, Manoury was succeeded by a certain Robert. Two draughts positions composed by a player with this name have come down to us: the same person? See for a win the diagram below: Robert played 10-4 (13x36) 16-32 and the black king is caught.

In the early 20th c. the premise still served as a café. In 1901 the owner, Morin, announced a draughts contest. The house still exists (as far as I know), but does not serve as a public house any longer.

How did the contemporaries experience the character of Café Manoury? A 19th c. chronicler tried to evoke the 18th c. "With its oak panels and grey walls it was suffused with a certain distinction", he wrote, "Manoury succeeded in holding the warmth of the good old days, he was averse from all the trimmings. It had the air of gentility; lovers of orgies of eating and drinking did not feel at ease here. In the 18th c. there were only a few coffee houses in Paris; the keepers had some standing, and for this reason they were able to create a room with a refined atmosphere." [Lepage 1882].

A similar view was given by Alphonse Éverat in “Le Palamède” 1839. "I am an old-timer", the publisher wrote, which seems an appropriate introduction for a man born in 1758. "Many happy hours I spent in Manoury's coffee house, already existing such a long time". Éverat was not happy with the redecoration sometime in the 19th c.: the panels were removed, the grey walls replaced by flash mirrors and gildings.

Café Manoury did not attract visitors from the highest social class. This conclusion can be illustrated by the (apocryphal) complaint of a French Minister that his social position kept him from playing a game of draughts against any visitor of Manoury's coffee house -an apocryphal story, by the way. It does not mean that Manoury ran a simple café. On the contrary, he draw Parisians from lower classes as well as prominent people, not ministers but representatives of the social classes below the aristocracy. The café was not first-rate, was one of the coffee houses with a good reputation just underneath the top. It was patronised by lawyers and solicitors [Lepage 1882]; one of them was Danton. And many gens des lettres, intellectuals, regularly came along to play a game of draughts. Among them Jean-Jacques Rousseau, also Alexis Piron(1689-1773), poet, playwright and satirist. Once he was a lawyer, but his legal work did not go together with his rather frivolous verses. Further Louis-Sebastien Mercier (1740-1814), playwright and politician, adherent of the ideas of Denis Diderot. In his “Tableau de Paris”, twelve volumes, he wrote down his observations of the life in Paris in the years 1782-1788. No draughts historian went through this work. It is a pity, for the reports of another observer, Restif de la Bretonne, brought interesting information about Manoury's café. In 1787, Restif described the public as follows [Jansen 1989].


Alexis Piron	Louis-Sebastien Mercier

When I entered the coffee house of the Place de l'Ecole for the first time, I saw four different sorts of visitors: draughts players, chess players, accidental visitors and pub-crawlers. Draughts played the first fiddle; chess players, those who were not welcome in Café de la Régence, were outvoted. One group, people not belonging to the habitués, had come to watch the draughts players (the maître of the house had written a book on draughts; in 1787 he had just a new edition printed); they seldom took some refreshment. (...) The pub-crawlers were not in the mood to play a game, nor to read the dozens of newspapers; they hang around the stove to have a pleasant talk until closing hour.

And there were beggars. Poor devils, with a very small purse, putting it mildly. They hang on a lively talker, curried favour with him, warmly commended him because of his qualities, admired him. If the victim ordered drink or food, he mostly offered his parasites something. Invariably they took coffee with much milk and a roll. After five of these consumptions and now and then half a bottle of apple juice or beer, those poor devils could survive a day.

Another time, Restif depicted a crowded café. The room was full, but no one ordered a consumption, people had come to play. Some of them played draughts, most of them dominoes, two of them played chess. All seats were occupied. Two men, obliged to stand and impudently treated by the errand boy, leaned against the stove. "We have to find another café", said one of them, "it is too busy here, we don't even have a seat". "Sure", the other replied, "but I am bored stiff in a half empty café".

After, the subject changed and they discussed the food. "I prefer not to eat in a café, they serve bad meals. When I am hungry I take a piece of salted meat, or if I want to treat myself a turkey in the Rue de la Hachette”. "Because we don't use our meal here we are badly treated; yesterday they snatched the draughts board out of my hands". "Me a set of dominoes". "Dam! How can we while the time?" At that moment a draughts board came available; they eagerly seized it and started a game.

Sagnac & Robiquet [1934] sketched a picture of Café Manoury after the Revolution. The regular customers have moderate opinions, do not speak revolutionary words. But is is possible that the house was run by Robert then, and that Manoury had died.