Café de la Regency

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The Café de la Régence in Paris was the center of the chess game in Europe from around the middle of the 18th to the middle of the 19th century . All the major chess players of that time played games there.

From the Café de la Place du Palais-Royal to the Café de la Régence

The café was founded in 1681 as one of the first coffee houses in Paris under the name of Café de la Place du Palais-Royal . It was located between the Rue Saint-Honoré and the Place du Palais-Royal . It was renamed Café de la Régence in 1715 at the earliest . The new name referred to the era of the regency (La Régence), which lasted from 1715 to 1723, when the Duke of Orléans replaced the still underage young King Louis XV. ruled. The café later kept this name. From around 1740 it served as a meeting place for the chess players of Paris who had previously played in the Café Procope on rue de l'Ancienne-Comédie. During the renovation of the Place du Palais-Royal in 1852, it was temporarily housed in the Hotel Dodun, Rue de Richelieu, before moving to n ° 161 Rue Saint-Honoré in 1854 .

Exterior view of the Café de la Régence in the 19th century

The heyday

Regular visitors to the café were celebrities such as Denis Diderot , Jean-Jacques Rousseau , François-André Danican Philidor , Napoleon Bonaparte and Benjamin Franklin . The chess masters François Antoine de Legall and later Lionel Kieseritzky and Daniel Harrwitz worked there as professional players. Diderot describes the café in his book Le neveu de Rameau . Top players of the Café de la Régence wrote the Traité des Amateurs , published anonymously in 1775 , which was understood as a supplement to Philidor's textbook. For many years a marble chess table, which Napoleon had played at in 1798, was on display in the café .

In addition to chess, checkers and billiards were also played in the café . In the autumn of 1843, the Café de la Régence was the scene of the duel between the two then leading players in the world, Pierre Saint-Amant and Howard Staunton . Staunton won 11 to 6 wins, four games ended in a draw .

Even Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels first met in this café on Wednesday, 28 August 1844. During his European tour also stopped Paul Morphy often to 1858/59 there on and defeated Harr joke in a match with 5.5 to 2.5 . This was the last major highlight in the café's chess history.

Paul Morphy in a game as a blind player, Café de la Régence, 1858

The end of the Café de la Régence

After Morphy's appearance, a gradual decline began, although later there were some noteworthy chess events, such as a correspondence match against the Chess Club of St. Petersburg in 1894 , which ended in a draw. After a change of ownership, the café was converted into a restaurant in 1910, so that it changed its character in the following years. The majority of the chess players then moved to the Café de l'Univers during the First World War . The restaurant, which kept historical memorabilia, existed until the mid-1950s. Today (2012) there is a Moroccan tourist office in the building , without any reference to the former café.

Paris, n ° 161 rue Saint-Honoré, the building of the former Café de la Régence, 2012

literature

Web links

Commons : Category: Café de la Régence (Paris)  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ukers 1922, chap. 11.
  2. ↑ A history of the official American presence in France (PDF file; 42 kB)
  3. ↑ Priebe, Carsten: A journey through the enlightenment. BoD, Norderstedt (2007) ISBN 978-3-8334-8614-2 , p. 60.

Coordinates: 48 ° 51 ′ 48 ″  N , 2 ° 20 ′ 6 ″  E