1816: the Grandest Tour

France: Chapter 19

George looked at his feet to avoid tripping over people. He noticed the floor had a pleasant pattern of small black tiles overlaying bigger white ones. Continuing inside, he and the others saw the cafe made up for in height what it lacked in breadth. A row of tall Doric columns lined the center of the room, while on either side of them two rows of oil-lamp chandeliers hung from above. One wall looked out to the street for light during the day, and the rest held mirrors stretching up to the ceiling.

The crush of bodies eased as they passed further inward. Filling the stools and benches were abundant customers reading the papers, discussing politics, crowding around a game of draughts, or relaxing with a glass of lemonade.

"There she is!" cried Robert. The others saw her just as he said it. The lady sat near the middle of the room behind a Greco-Roman, marble-topped table. Elevated by a polished, hardwood platform she was perched on what looked like a throne of former royalty – which, given France's recent history, it could easily have been. Madame Romain presided over her little kingdom with an ineffable grace. At first it appeared that she sat there doing very little. But as they looked, the boys gradually perceived that a refined etiquette governed her every interaction with the cafe staff and the public. She would ring a little bell that stood between two flower vases and a waiter would come running, upon which she despatched him to any corner of the cafe that required more lemonade, coffee, or desserts. As with any social superior, no stranger was allowed to address her unless introduced by an existing acquaintance. But this did not prevent her, after introduction, from carrying on a lively conversation with several admirers at once.

Madame Romain's many devotees appeared locked in a perpetual contest for her attention. And to George and the others this seemed entirely just: an undoubted beauty, she had a lovely face, dark eyes, and an exceptional figure. Her hair was dressed exquisitely in a tall Neoclassical style, with delicate ringlets curling behind her neck. A flawless complexion like white marble set off her hair to perfection, along with an ample collection of jewels.

Lost in contemplation, it took George a moment to register that a waiter was trying to seat them. He snapped back to the present and told the waiter the size of the party, and shortly they were seated. La Belle Limonadière still held vastly more interest than the mundane concerns of coffee and lemonade, so everyone's attention remained on her as an admirer stood up to make a poetic recitation in her honor. It was in French, of course, and went along these lines:

So Venus has quitted fair Cythera,

To take up another abode;

The amiable mother of Cupid

On Paris has now been bestowed!

"Come, follow," she says unto Mystery

"For you'll keep a secret unknown.

I wish to turn into a limonadière

At the Café des Milles Colonnes!"

The whole room applauded this offering to the Muses; and everyone agreed that, given its subject, it contained not a jot of undue hyperbole.

As the cafe settled again, it was only now that George caught sight of a strange little man in a corner not far from the Goddess of Sweet Refreshments. Just as striking as Madame Romain's beauty was his ugliness.

"Who do you reckon that is?" George said to Tobias.

"Oh, him! I fear that's Monsieur Romain, the proprietor. The guide mentions him as well."

"What does it say?" George was growing fascinated with this character: something like a squat, cantankerous satyr next to his Naiad of a lemonade-wife.