Café de la Régence

The Café de la Régence in Paris was an important European centre of chess in the 18th and 19th centuries. All important chess masters of the time played there.

The famous chess match between Howard Staunton and Pierre Charles Fournier de Saint-Amant, on 16 December 1843, by Jean-Henri Marlet

Fictional depiction of the great chess masters of the time gathering to play at the café, Antti Favén [fi], 1902–1913

The Café's masters included, but are not limited to:

• Paul Morphy
• François-André Danican Philidor (who often met with Benjamin Franklin)
• Alexandre Deschapelles
• Legall de Kermeur (Philidor's teacher)
• Jules Arnous de Rivière
• Adolf Anderssen
• Samuel Rosenthal
• Pierre Charles Fournier de Saint-Amant
• Lionel Kieseritzky
• Louis-Charles Mahé de La Bourdonnais

Addresses

It was opened in 1681 as the Café de la Place du Palais-Royal, near the Palais-Royal, Paris. By the 18th century it was known as the Café de la Régence ("Regency Café").

• In 1852 the café moved temporarily to hôtel Dodun, 21 Rue de Richelieu.
• In 1854 the Café de la Régence moved to 161 Rue Saint-Honoré and remained there until it became a restaurant in 1910.
• The chess players moved to the café de l'Univers in 1916.
• The Office national marocain du tourisme (National Moroccan Tourist Office) took over the site in 1918.

Additional information

• La Société des Amateurs was based there.
• In 1742, the celebrated French writers and philosophers Diderot and Rousseau met at this café.^[1]
• Karl Marx met Friedrich Engels for the second time at this café on 28 August 1844.^[2]
• The "great tournament of Paris 1867," won by Ignatz von Kolisch over Szymon Winawer and Wilhelm Steinitz, was played there.
• The Norwegian painter Edvard Munch visited the café on 4 May 1885, during his first visit to France to study the French impressionists.^[3]
• According to the painter Oscar Parviainen [fi], Jean Sibelius improvised the main theme, A Prayer to God, of the finale of his Third Symphony at Café de la Régence, in January 1906.^[4]

See also

•  Chess portal

References

1. Goldzink, Jean, XVIIIème siècle
2. While at their first meeting, a few years before, they were not very impreased with each other, the meeting at the Paris cafe was the start of their lifelong personal and political association. Marx, Karl; Engels, Friedrich (1964-01-01). The Communist Manifesto. Pantheon Books – via Google Books.^{[permanent dead link]}
3. Prideaux, Sue (2005). Edvard Munch - Behind the Scream. Yale University Press. p. 27.
4. Ylirotu, Jeremias; et al. (Metropoli Oy (metropoli.fi)) (2002). "Ainolan ensimmäiset vuodet 1904-1908". www.sibelius.fi. Retrieved 2016-05-11.

Bibliography

• Shenk, David (2006). The Immortal Game: A history of chess. Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-51010-1.
• Metzner, Paul (1998). Crescendo of the Virtuoso – via cdlib.org.
• Whyld, Ken (2006). Chess Christmas. Olomouc: Moravian Chess. S. 311-321. ISBN 80-7189-559-8.

External links

•   Media related to Café de la Régence (Paris) at Wikimedia Commons

48°51′36″N 2°20′33″E / 48.85990°N 2.34260°E / 48.85990; 2.34260