Coffee: The Epic of a Commodity (13 page)

“Some assure us that coffee is a cooling drink, and for this reason they recommend us to drink it very hot. . . . But the actual truth is that coffee, in its nature, is a hot and very dry substance. I say this not only following such authorities as Avicenna and Prosper Albanus, but also because these effects are obvious to me. The burned particles, which it contains in large quantities, have so violent an energy that, when they enter the blood, they attract the lymph and dry the kidneys. Furthermore, they are dangerous to the brain, for, after having dried up the cerebro-spinal fluid and the convolutions, they open the pores of the body, with the result that the somniferous animal forces are overcome. In this way the ashes contained in coffee produce such obstinate wakefulness that the nervous juices are dried up; . . . the upshot being general exhaustion, paralysis, and impotence. Through the acidification of the blood, which has already assumed the condition of a river-bed at midsummer, all the parts of the body are deprived of their juices, and the whole frame becomes excessively lean.

“These evils are especially noticeable in persons who are by nature of a bilious temperament, who from birth onwards have suffered from a hot liver and a hot brain; in persons whose intelligence is extremely subtle, and whose blood is already superheated. For these reasons we have to infer that the drinking and the use of coffee would be injurious to the inhabitants of Marseille.”

Did the Marseillais thereupon abandon the use of coffee? They had, by this time, been Frenchmen far too long not to scent the ludicrous in such dithyrambs. They knew what doctors were like with their hairsplitting dissertations. In dozens of contemporary plays, physicians were represented as objects of ridicule, as would-be-learned ignoramuses. People “with no sense of humour,” for instance the English, the Germans, and the Dutch, might be imposed upon by medical bombast; but among the cheery Provençals, among the sceptics of Marseille, such froth could only arouse a spirit of contradiction.

All the same, the adverse judgment of the Marseille doctors did a good deal of harm to coffee. Although the masses were uninfluenced by it, it made way among the learned. The great majority of French physicians at the close of the seventeenth century, influenced by Colomb’s dissertation, were opponents of coffee-drinking. They held that the fruit of this Arabian plant was only a drug, and must not be used to prepare a beverage for daily use. Various rumours were disseminated about coffee-poisoning, and found credence, though they were manifestly absurd. When Jean Baptiste Colbert died in 1683, at the age of sixty-four, seemingly from over-fatigue, it was bruited abroad that he had burned out his stomach with coffee. Liselotte of the Palatinate wrote in one of her letters that the Princess of Hanau-Birkenfeld had died of coffee-drinking. At the post-mortem examination it was disclosed that this poisonous drink had produced hundreds of ulcers in the unfortunate woman’s stomach, and that all of them were filled with black coffee-grounds! (One gathers that the princess succumbed to multiple cancer of the stomach. As we learn from the famous report of the autopsy of Napoleon, cancerous tissue looks very like coffee-grounds.)

Other physicians, however, raised their voices to refute so preposterous a calumny. One of the most meritorious was Sylvestre Dufour, who hit upon the idea of making a chemical analysis of coffee, with the aid of two Lyons doctors. Collaborating with these, Spon and Cassaigne, in the year 1685, he penned the first quasi-modern description of the constituents of coffee, and showed what, thanks to its chemical constitution, were the effects of coffee on human beings. Coffee, said Dufour, counteracted drunkenness and nausea, and was helpful in disorders of menstruation. It promoted the flow of urine, strengthened the heart, relieved dropsy, gravel, and gout. It cured hypochondria and scurvy. It strengthened the air-passages and the voice, reduced fever and relieved migraine. Dufour must obviously have made numerous experiments on human beings. He came across some of those rare specimens of mankind who can drink coffee at bedtime and nevertheless sleep soundly—which seemed to him wonderful. He said that they must be persons who were so highly nervous that the coffee “relieved their disquiet, and removed their feeling of anxiety,” thus enabling them to sleep.

Notwithstanding these experimental investigations, it proved very hard to eradicate from the French mind the notion that coffee had a “dessicative influence.” Dr. Duncan of Montpellier, a man of Scottish extraction, pointed out, rightly, that coffee was good for persons “whose blood circulates sluggishly, who are of a damp and cold nature.” It might have seemed an obvious inference from this that coffee would be especially useful for Dutchmen, Englishmen, and Germans; but Duncan did not draw this conclusion. Starting from the premise that the circulation of the blood of Frenchmen did not need to be accelerated, he became one of the adversaries of coffee. Well on in the eighteenth century, when coffee had already passed into general use, Dr. Tissot took the same view in his
Von der Gesundheit der Gelehrten,
published at Leipzig in 1769. Tissot held that Cornelius Buntekuh, the Great Elector’s physician-in-ordinary, had “corrupted the whole of northern Europe.” The mistaken belief that a sick person could usefully be given “a hundred cups of tea” had incurred the most disastrous consequences. Buntekuh’s theory concerning coffee was crazy; the quickening of the circulation was only of apparent value. “It is a foolish belief of many sick persons that their ailments are due to an excessive thickness of the blood. Owing to this fallacy, they drink the harmful beverage coffee. The coffee-pots and teapots that I find upon their tables remind me of Pandora’s box, out of which all evils came!”

Like his predecessors, Tissot was willing to allow coffee “a place in the pharmacopœia”; but the daily use of the beverage was harmful and to be condemned. “The repeated stimulation of the fibres of the stomach weakens them in the end; the tough mucus which normally clings to the inner coats of the organ is washed away; the nerves are stimulated, and become unduly sensitive; the energies are dissipated; the patient suffers from a slow fever, and from other troubles whose cause often remains obscure; and these troubles affect, not only the fluid parts, but also the blood-vessels.” Of the worldwide struggle coffee was waging against the evils of alcoholism, Dr. Tissot had no idea. On the other hand, he was obliged to admit that “if coffee be drunk now and again only, it clarifies the ideas and certainly sharpens the understanding, for which reason men of letters make much use of it.” Still, he adds emphatically, “we have to ask ourselves whether Homer, Thucydides, Plato, Lucretius, Virgil, Ovid, and Horace, whose works will be a joy for all time, ever drank coffee.”

These disputations were left to the learned, among whom they continued for decades; but the worthy citizens of Marseille took no heed of them. Since the Marseillais were great topers, it came easy to them to gulp down a huge draught of coffee as if it were wine. But now there was noised abroad a calumny—in print first, then whispered, then shouted from the housetops—that did more harm to coffee than either Bacchus or Æsculapius could do. It was a charge brought against the beverage by Venus.

Few German books were then read in southern France. One German work, however, became well known, thanks to a French translation. The original was entitled
Reise Adam Oelschlägers zu Moskowitern, Tataren, und Persern
—the translation by Wicquefort,
Relation du voyage d’Adam Olearius en Moscovie, Tartarie et Perse,
having been published at Paris in the year 1666. This traveller’s tale—the journey had been undertaken with Paul Fleming, the German poet, as companion, at the instance of the Duke of Holstein—was, for the most part, true. Unfortunately, however, the author recorded a legend concerning the king of Persia, Mahomet Kosvin, who, as Oelschläger puts it, “had become so habituated to the use of coffee that he took a dislike for women. When one day the queen, looking out of the window, saw that a stallion was being emasculated, she asked why so well-bred a beast was thus shamefully handled. The men engaged in the operation told her that the stallion was too spirited and therefore troublesome, and that they were gelding it to tame it. The queen answered that they were wasting their pains, for coffee had the same influence. If they gave the stallion a sufficiency of coffee, within a few days it would become as cold as the king of Persia was towards herself, his wife.”

This tale had the effect in Marseille of alienating many who had hitherto been the friends of coffee. Not a few of its adherents fell away. Those whose forefathers had been Greeks, Romans, Phoenicians, Goths, and Franks wanted their town to remain populous and immortal. With a mischievous smile they left the rediscovery of coffee to their rivals, the Parisians.

I
N
the middle of the seventeenth century it seemed as if the sun were shining continuously on France, and especially upon the gardens of Versailles. King Louis XIV, the “Roi Soleil,” was growing to manhood. He had a taste for brilliant court festivals and imposing architecture. Where the king was, were warmth and sunshine and fruit-fulness. Thanks to him, Paris and Versailles became the centre of the world. Anyone near to him was happy, whereas those removed from the sunlight of his countenance were cold and miserable.

The princes and peoples of the world directed eager glances towards Paris, towards the sunlit court of Louis XIV. They were dazzled by the spectacle. The servants and the satellites of the Roi Soleil shone by reflected radiance. Colbert, who was making all Frenchmen rich, was the Mercury of industry; Vauban, who built fortresses throughout the realm, was a French Hephæstus; Turenne was a new Mars; Boileau, a legislative Apollo; and there were several Venuses.

To this richly equipped court there came in 1669 tidings that the sultan was about to send an ambassador. Weighty news this, for was not Turkey the natural ally of the Roi Soleil against Germany? How could the Bourbons continue to hold Strasbourg and the left bank of the Rhine unless the fighting forces of the Holy Roman Emperor were kept occupied in the East? On the other hand, there was something scandalous about the idea of an alliance with Turkey, for was not the king of France the “Most Christian King”? Of course young Louis (now thirty-one years of age) had never hesitated to stir up Hungary against the emperor. But to join forces with the Turks, with Mohammedans, was another story. He could not venture to do so openly. Even in that age of absolutist rule, there was a public opinion which imposed moral restrictions upon the activities of a monarch whose motto was “L’Etat, c’est moi.”

It might have been wiser to receive the ambassador privately. But His Majesty King Louis liked to be in the limelight. All his doings must be open to the gaze of the world. Louis XIV, therefore, ordered a new suit of clothes in which to receive Suleiman Aga. It was sparkling with diamonds, looking as if woven out of stars. A contemporary informs us that the king’s coat, which was worn only once, cost fourteen million livres. The courtiers, likewise, were glittering with gold and jewels. The French ruler’s throne was placed upon a broad gallery, hung with silks and Burgundian tapestries. In front of it was a table made of solid silver.

The ambassador arrived. He came alone, leaving his servants on the doormat. Clad in simple woollen robes, he approached with slow and stately steps. He seemed quite unimpressed by the brilliant attire of the French monarch and the courtiers. Showing neither astonishment nor reverence, he stepped up to the seated king, did not prostrate himself as had been expected, but merely bowed his head a little and laid his hand upon his breast. Having stood thus for a few seconds, he held out the letter which the sultan had written to his “brother in the West.” King Louis did not take the letter, but nodded towards the left, where one of his marshals was standing. This official opened the letter and held it in front of the king. Louis spoke in a whisper—such subdued tones contrasting strangely with the big aquiline nose and the immense wig—saying that the sultan’s letter looked rather long, and he would read it later, at leisure.

To Suleiman Aga it seemed monstrous that what came from the hands of the Grand Turk should be so unceremoniously treated, that the West should apparently disdain the East, so he instantly made a dignified protest. Likewise speaking in low tones, the ambassador asked His Majesty why His Majesty had not risen to his feet on perceiving the name of the sultan at the foot of the document. While the shocked courtiers stared at this unheard-of impertinence, His Majesty replied that the king of France was a law unto himself, and accountable to no one for his actions. Thereupon the Turkish ambassador was dismissed, in high dudgeon.

He and his servants were driven back to Paris in one of the royal chariots. He rented a stately palace, and, whereas all had been astonished at his appearing before King Louis in a simple woollen robe, he now blinded the eyes of the Parisians with a glorious display. The word ran that within the palace an artificial climate was maintained; that Persian fountains played in the rooms; and that the rose-leaf odours of Constantinople had been charmed into the dwelling of Suleiman Aga. These were exaggerations; still, when the inquisitive French nobles secured an entry to the palace, what they saw was wonderful enough.

The rooms were dimly lighted. The furniture was made of scented wood; the walls were covered with glazed tiles, and in them were recesses from the tops of which hung stalactites. The ceilings were multicoloured domes. There were no chairs! This seemed uncomfortable at first, but the guests soon found great ease in sitting or half-reclining upon cushions. It was a relaxation to the muscles. Quite a different sort of sociability from the tense and intriguing sociability of the West, but a sociability of a new kind. After all, it was not so difficult to squat Turkish fashion. The men were offered voluminous dressing-gowns, and were encouraged to loll as they pleased and to lean on their elbows. At first, however, few men came; they preferred to send their wives. The marquises and duchesses, sumptuously clad, swam rather than walked into Suleiman Aga’s wonder-palace. They were so gracious as to sink into his cushions. Dark-skinned slaves, clad in flowing Turkish robes, presented gifts of damask serviettes with gold tassels. They also served a beverage, boiling hot and with a detestable taste. Most of the ladies would have liked to spit it out again, but they recognized that this would have been bad manners. The privilege of visiting Suleiman Aga’s house had to be paid for by drinking coffee. Would their host be annoyed if they sweetened the drink? A viscountess pretended that she was about to tempt the ambassador’s singing birds with a lump of sugar, but, on the sly, dropped it into the bitter black beverage. Their host’s solemn face showed the glimmer of a smile. He made no remark, but next day sugar was served to the ladies with their coffee.