Bignon's, which was a name known throughout
the world, has fallen from its high estate; the Cafe Riche, though it
retains a good restaurant, is not the old famous dining-place any
longer; and the Marivaux, where Joseph flourished, has been transformed
into a _brasserie_. The Cafe Hardi, at one time a very celebrated
restaurant, made place for the Maison d'Or, and the gilded glory of the
latter has now passed in its turn. The Cafe Veron, Philippe's, of the
Rue Mont Orgueil, and the Rocher de Cancale in the Rue Mandar, where
Borel, one of the cooks of Napoleon I., made gastronomic history,
Beauvilliers's, the proprietor of which was a friend of all the
field-marshals of Europe, and made and lost half-a-dozen fortunes, the
Trois Freres Provenceaux, the Cafe Very, and D'Hortesio's are but
memories.
The saddest disappearance of all, because the latest, is the Maison
d'Or, which is to be converted, so it is said, into a _brasserie_. The
retirement of Casimir, one of the Verdier family, who was to the D'Or
what Duglere was to the Anglais, precipitated the catastrophe, and in
the autumn of 1902 the house gave its farewell luncheon, and closed with
all the honours of war. Alas for the _Carpe a la Gelee_ and the _Sole au
vin Rouge_ and the _Poularde Maison d'Or_! I shall never, I fear, eat
their like again.
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