in which there were more flour, crushed almonds, and brown
sugar than pure sugar and cacao, concoctions which were sold at two sous
a cake by village grocers, and manufactured for the purpose of ruining
the sale of the Spanish commodity.

As for coffee, Pere Socquard simply boiled it in a utensil known to all
such households as the "big brown pot"; he let the dregs (that were half
chicory) settle, and served the decoction, with a coolness worthy of a
Parisian waiter, in a china cup which, if flung to the ground, would not
have cracked.

At this period the sacred respect felt for sugar under the Emperor was
not yet dispelled in the town of Soulanges, and Aglae Socquard boldly
served three bits of it of the size of hazel-nuts to a foreign merchant
who had rashly asked for the literary beverage.

The wall decoration of the cafe, relieved by mirrors in gilt frames and
brackets on which the hats were hung, had not been changed since the
days when all Soulanges came to admire the romantic paper, also a
counter painted like mahogany with a Saint-Anne marble top, on which
shone vessels of plated metal and lamps with double-burners, which
were, rumor said, given to the beautiful Madame Socquard by Gaubertin.
A sticky coating of dirt covered everything, like that found on old
pictures put away and long forgotten in a garret. The tables painted to
resemble marble, the benches covered in red Utrecht velvet, the hanging
glass lamp full of oil, which fed two lights, fastened by a chain to
the ceiling and adorned with glass pendants, were the beginning of the
celebrity of the then Cafe de la Guerre.

There, from 1802 to 1804, all the bourgeois of Soulanges played at
dominoes and a game of cards called "brelan," drank tiny glasses of
liqueur or boiled wine, and ate brandied fruits and biscuits; for the
dearness of colonial products had banished coffee, sugar, and chocolate.
Punch was a great luxury; so was "bavaroise." These infusions were made
with a sugary substance resembling molasses, the name of which is now
lost, but which, at the time, made the fortune of its inventor.

These succinct details will recall to the memory of all travellers many
others that are analogous; and those persons who have never left Paris
can imagine the ceiling blackened with smoke and the mirrors specked
with millions of spots, showing in what freedom and independence the
whole order of diptera lived in the Cafe de la Paix.

The beautiful Madame So