Few indeed were
the students who lived in the Latin Quarter during the last twelve
years of the Restoration and did not frequent that temple sacred to
hunger and impecuniosity. There a dinner of three courses, with a
quarter bottle of wine or a bottle of beer, could be had for eighteen
sous; or for twenty-two sous the quarter bottle becomes a bottle.
Flicoteaux, that friend of youth, would beyond a doubt have amassed a
colossal fortune but for a line on his bill of fare, a line which
rival establishments are wont to print in capital letters, thus--BREAD
AT DISCRETION, which, being interpreted, should read "indiscretion."
Flicoteaux has been nursing-father to many an illustrious name.
Verily, the heart of more than one great man ought to wax warm with
innumerable recollections of inexpressible enjoyment at the sight of
the small, square window panes that look upon the Place de la
Sorbonne, and the Rue Neuve-de-Richelieu. Flicoteaux II. and
Flicoteaux III. respected the old exterior, maintaining the dingy hue
and general air of a respectable, old-established house, showing
thereby the depth of their contempt for the charlatanism of the
shop-front, the kind of advertisement which feasts the eyes at the
expense of the stomach, to which your modern restaurant almost always
has recourse.
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