파리 카페 프로코프에 대한 역사적 고찰

Historical Research on the Parisian Café Procope

솔리만 아가의 방문(1669년)을 계기로 프랑스에는 커피문화가 유행하였다. 대사를 수행한 파스칼은 파리에 남아 생-제르맹 시장과 레콜 나루터에서 커피 행상을 하지만, 정기시장이 갖는 한계와 파리 사람들의 무관심을 극복하지 못하고 실패하였다. 그의 카페 종업원으로 일한 바 있는 프로코피오는 시장으로 돌아와 커피 판매로 돈을 모으고, 다른 형태의 사업을 기획하였다. 이러한 노력의 결과가 카페 프로코프의 탄생으로 나타났다. 본 논문은 카페 프로코프가 어떤 과정을 거치며 파리를 대표하는 최초의 카페가 되었는지, 성공의 요소는 무엇이었는지를 알아보고자 한다. 이번 연구는 런던의 커피하우스, 파리 팔레 루아얄의 카페에 관한 연구와 흐름을 같이 할 것이다.

The visit of Soliman Aga(1669) is the starting-point of the development of coffee culture in Paris. As the ambassador of Ottoman Empire, he was granted an audience with Louis XIV in Versailles. His task was to read the king’s thoughts : If my empire attacks Vienna, Louis will intervene in the war? But Soliman Aga did not accomplish his mission. He went and stayed in Paris for 10 months with more than two dozen attendants. During that time, in a Turkish room he served Turkish coffees very carefully to the ladies of Paris high society. Soliman Aga could infer information about Louis’s mind from their ongoing conversation in the room. Not long after that he left the city, Parisians fell deep into coffee drinking. One of the attendants of Soliman Aga, a person named Pascal, remained in Paris. With a large amount of coffee beans that his superior left, he started up coffee peddling in the Saint-Germain market and at the Quai de l’École. Pascal is a historical figure because of the relationship between Soliman Aga and the owner of Café Procope (Procopio), but innumerable and unidentified coffee peddlers of Levantine origins worked in the streets of European cities like London, Oxford, Paris etc. Pascal did not succeed in coffee business. He thought he could benefit from conducting his business in a market as people gathered there. But the temporary function of Saint-Germain market, like every market throughout France, was Pascal’s Achilles heel. His other business at Quai de l’École finally ended up getting no attention from Parisians. Nonetheless, Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli, an ex-employee of Pascal, returned to the Saint-Germain Market in order to sell coffee. He made money in that place and also obtained several licenses from the French government relevant to sale of coffee, tea, lemonade and alcoholic beverages. And he was planning new-concept coffeehouse that would far surpass Pascal’s peddling. Wide spaces, tapestried walls, chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, marble tables... he tried to make his Café Procope a center of brilliant social life. This coffeehouse was well located on the rue des Fossés-Saint-Germain, very close to the Théâtre-Français. The effect of people flocking to the theater was wonderful. Wealthy theater-goers, many famous actors, play writers became regular frequenters of that coffeehouse. It was critical factor directly connected to the success of Café Procope. If I may add one more thing, there is an extensive menu including tea, hot chocolate, wine, l’eau de cédrat, ices, sorbets, barvaroise etc. So, Café Procope was to be the first modern coffeehouse in Paris and would serve as a model to the Parisian coffeehouses that would follow in the years to come.(Daejin University)