Identifier: xviiithcenturyit00jaco (find matches)
Title: The XVIIIth century; its institutions, customs, and costumes France, 1700-1789
Year: 1875 (1870s)
Authors: Jacob, P. L., 1806-1884
Subjects: Manners and customs
Publisher: London, Bickers & Son
Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University

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y were, for themost part, plain and devoid of decoration, some of them quiet andeven silent, while others were noisy, and each had its peculiarphysiognomy. The Cafe de la Regence and the Cafe du Ouai deIEcole had inherited the renown of the Cafe Procope. Bachelors,both young and old, men of letters, retired officers, foreigners, andnews-reporters, formed the regular customers of the Paris caft^s. The young men, who seemed to care less and less for the manlysports and exercises once so popular, needed more exciting amuse-ments than were to be had in the cafes. They still learnt fencingand riding, but the lower classes had the monopoly of bowls, skittles,and archery. St. Evrcmonds Sicilian traveller, in reference to Parisduring the last few years of the i 7th century, is made to say : Theyoung people are very fond of bodily exercise, especially of tennis,but the elderly people spend their time on dice, cards, and scandal.Paris at this time had a large number of tennis-courts, which were
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n w H POOiO o FETE DAYS AND AMUSEMENTS OF PARIS. 351 much frequented, but at the close of the iSth century there wereonly five or six left. The Marquis de Mirabeau accounts for thedecline of tennis as follows : A man who has just had his haircurled and perfumed does not care to risk having it disarranged,because he intends the operation to carry him over a fortnight, so,instead of playing tennis, he takes his ease in an arm-chair. Thesons of the bourgeois and the shopkeepers no longer frequented theArsenal playground, where the young nobles had so enjoyed them-selves during the Fronde, and the trade-apprentices had quite givenup their games of football and running-matches which formerlyenlivened the exterior Boulevards. The mode was in favour ofmore sedentary amusements; but in excursions to the country, whereyoung men and women were assembled together, little provocationwas required to get up a dance. They also indulged in prisonersbase and rounders, and the Parisienne was also very

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