On its Bohemian side, Montmartre is a second and, to the thinking of many, a greater and more brilliant _Quartier Latin_.
Here abound the literary and artistic restaurants, cafés, _bouillons_, _crèmeries_, and cabarets which have always conferred a peculiar charm on Paris. Here, as well as in the Latin Quarter (and more numerous and varied, perhaps, here than there), are the modern counterparts of the _Treille d’Or_, the _Pomme de Pin_, the _Radis Couronné_, the _Pressoir d’Or_, the _Ceinture qui Craque_, the _Deux Torches_, and the _Trois Entonnoirs_ of the time of Cyrano; the _Procope_, _de Valois_, _de Foy_, _du Caveau_, and _Mécanique_ of the time of Louis XVI.; the _Viot_, _Bléry_, _Flicoteaux_, _de Buci_, and _de la Rotonde_ of the Restoration and Louis Philippe; the _Molière_, _Voltaire_, _L’Orient_, “_Sherry Cobbler_,” and _Bobino_ of the last empire. And here they have been long enough to have already developed their legends and _esprit de corps_.
In the _Brasseries des Martyrs_ and _Fontaine_, _Cabarets de Ramponneau_, _de la Grande Pinte_, _du Plus Grand Bock_, and _de la Place Belhomme_, and the _Cafés Jean Goujon_, _Laplace_, _de la Nouvelle Athénée_, and _Du Rat Mort_,[89] poets and painters, now grizzled, chattered and revelled before the grey hairs came. Dinochaux, of the _Café Dinochaux_ (rue Bréda), who nourished several of his patrons gratis for years, and bestowed credit unsolicited on any one who showed himself worthy in literature or art, has taken his place in history alongside of Ragueneau, the keeper of the _Rôtisserie des Poètes_ of _Cyrano_.
You recall Ragueneau, the quaint saint, it is to be hoped. If not, here is a scrap of dialogue to evoke him:—
“CYRANO. _Bercés par ta voix. Ne vois-tu pas comme ils s’empiffrent?_
“RAGUENEAU. _Je le vois.... Sans regarder, de peur que cela ne les trouble; Et dire ainsi mes vers me donne un plaisir double, Puisque je satisfais un doux faible que j’ai, Tout en laissant manger ceux qui n’ont pas mangé._
“CYRANO (lui frappant sur l’épaule). _Toi, tu me plais!_”
The cook at Marguéry’s, being asked once upon a time what he thought of the _Vache Enragée_, replied: “_Mon dieu, de la vache enragée! Je crois qu’on pourrait en faire un plat mangeable avec beaucoup de bonne humeur et des petites femmes autour._”