Restaurant Américain

— In the days of the Second Empire, when the city of Paris was not only the Mecca of the artists, but the purveyor of every refined luxury which could make the gold of all the world flow into her unreturning hands, there was to be found a quiet, modest hostelry devoted to the American people. A few cards of the kind known among us as business cards had been put into circulation among the artist folk, as the probable constituents of such a place, announcing the claim of a restaurant Américain with specialité de pumpkin pie. On another line, lower down, as if the idea were an afterthought, we of the American colony were informed that the address given — namely, Rue Godot de Mauroi—was near the Church of the Madeleine, as though there must be something about the proximity of a church which would appeal to a hungry American. Although so near the great thoroughfares, this street was as narrow, as clean, and as hard to find as some of the byways of a country town ; and when our delegation from the American colony concluded, on a certain Thanksgiving Day, to visit this refuge for transatlantic homesickness, it was with some difficulty and many turnings that we reached a small, unpretending, but exceedingly neat refectory. On a large window was painted in quaint yellow letters the statement already announced on cardboard. To this announcement was added the legend bifstek, while below, a separate line contained the admission. English spoken a little.

We found the place presided over by a busthing little Frenchwoman, of stocky build and kindly face, whose hospitality was not all to be bought, as future testimony will confirm. The good lady was herself purveyor and cook. The waiter, cashier, butler, and maid of all work was her only son, a bright and pleasant youth of twenty-two years, whose dexterity in serving a roomful of clattering people, without keeping any one waiting, suggested the marvels of sleight of hand.

Here were gathered, especially on cold, dark winter evenings, many Americans who had lived for near a generation in France, to whom Paris was now home, yet who still loved to cultivate such patriotic sentiment as might be evoked by the national viands purveyed by worthy Madame Basque. Others there were who frankly acknowledged their hope of finding among her patrons “ some civilized language;” being tired of pointing at the bill of fare and shouting aloud, with many grimaces, as was yet the fashion with those who spoke only the President’s American. As for Madame Basque and her son, the announcement in the window, modest as it was, proved an exaggeration, for they spoke no English at all, save such small linguistic achievements as the expressions, “ bifstek,” “ punkin pie,” “Tanksgiven,” “ bokveet kak.” The patronage of the place, it may be added, was not exclusively American. The Russians came frequently for a dish common to their nation and to ours, the “bokveet kak,” which tempting morsel was in those days almost the only tie between two countries whose affinity has since become a political anomaly.

But our unlanguaged compatriots, if disappointed in the English of their hostess, found ample amends in the multitudinous dialects of their own tongue as spoken by her guests. Here could be heard the sonorous nasal of our Northern latitudes, the softer intonation of our Southwestern, or the still softer vocality of the Gulf States, with the breezy utterance of the Northwest. Here were discussed not only American affairs, then seething with the ferment which was to burst into war a few months later, but also French politics, with a freedom not dared elsewhere, as the Emperor was believed to be most friendly to Americans on the one hand, and on the other pleasantly indifferent to their criticisms.

On this very Thanksgiving evening it was related that, on the preceding Fourth of July, a party of patriotic celebrants, having gathered at Madame Basque’s, took carriages for a drive through the Champs and Bois. Imbued with the hilarity deemed proper to the occasion, and with the alcoholic insouciance derivable from the cereal products of our beloved country, these gentlemen were moved to stick their feet out of the carriage windows, and to shout, “Vive la République ! ” —demonstrations which brought them to the notice of the police, by whom they were promptly arrested. But the moment that the commissary saw the young enthusiasts and heard their French they were discharged, as evident aliens and harmless to the empire. Sooth to say, the sedition breathed at these simple repasts amounted to little more than an avowed preference for our own institutions, with an occasional boastful sentiment seasoned with French wine.

On our entrance we had found the place already full, whereat Madame Basque, with a theatrical waving of her hands and with sincere anguish in her voice, exclaimed, “ Messieurs, je suis désolée.” Then followed a sputter of what a Kentuckian present called “gibberish,” interlarded with stray “American” words, such as “punkin pie,” “ bokveet kak ; ” American national viands struggling with French apologies to the accompaniment of voluble gestures.

Looking around, I observed that the walls were not without ornament, showing many grades of decorative art, the contributions, doubtless, of artists who had dined, but could not pay (save “ in trade,” as they called it), — rude, half-finished sketches, some of them evincing real talent, others pictorial desperation. In addition to these, the walls displayed sundry hints of a commercial pictography familiar to us Americans: humorous allusions to ruin wrought through dubious credit, couched in all the uncouthness of literal translation from the Yankee ; “ Le pauvre Trust est mort,” with accompanying illustration, the legend of his taking-off informing us that Bad Pay had slain him.

While awaiting our turn at one of the reluctantly yielded tables, we learned from the conversation about us that there had been a wedding in the household of Madame Basque that very day. The factotum of the house, the son of our hostess, having arrived at an age which, in France, is deemed marriageable, with parental consent, she had taken the matter into her own vigorous hands, and had selected from among her friends of the bourgeoisie that paragon of every virtue which alone can satisfy the fond mother of an only son. The mother of the lady so selected having given her consent, the two young people were brought together, and a most systematic courtship was pursued under the fond maternal eye. In due time mayor and priest had done their office. The happy pair, with two delighted mothers, had made their wedding journey in a carriage to a neighboring park, where they drank some sugar and water without alighting. They had returned the same afternoon, man and wife, the wedding journey over; the two new-made mothers-in-law accompanying in full canonicals. Such a bridal seemed strange enough to the denizens of this establishment, and many were the comments offered and conjectures hazarded concerning the probable outcome of a union so much at variance with the views of our people. Yet, so far as I have heard, the happy couple proved to be models of conjugal as well as filial devotion.

“How came this place to be so distinctively republican, right in the heart of the Second Empire ? ’’ queried an Englishman who was there with American friends.

“Oh, a mere accident,” replied a journalist long resident as Paris correspondent. “A young American artist was taken very ill one day at this place, and confided to the madame that he had no home, no friends, no money. She took him to her house (he was about the age of her son, you know), nursed him through a long illness, paying every expense herself ; and when he came to die, she at once assumed all the offices and expenses of the funeral, even to the extent of buying for him a resting - place at Père la Chaise. It was to meet these expenses that it became necessary to delay the marriage a considerable time, for so upright a woman would not allow herself the laxury of those long-contemplated nuptials until the last sou of her debts was paid. This very morning I saw a receipted bill for the little railing around the burial plot,— paid just before starting for the mayor. Yes, and these are the people who, according to English literature, have no heart,” continued the newspaper man, looking askance at the Briton.