Coffee and Cigarettes at Le Fontenoy: A Parisienne’s Café Adventures

In this column, native Parisian Edith de Belleville — author, attorney, and tour guide — shares her café discoveries

There are cafés in Paris that take you on a journey through time and space. That’s what happened to me one early wintry Saturday, when I was waiting for some American clients to take them on my literary Saint-Germain-des-Prés tour. As I was 30 minutes early and it was far too cold to wait for them outside, I looked for an establishment where I could have a coffee in the warmth. I found myself in the chic Rue du Bac in Paris’s bourgeois 7th arrondissement. I could see galleries for enlightened art lovers and elegant boutiques, but no café.

Fortunately, after a few minutes, I saw a sign that said Le Fontenoy. Chilled, I rushed into the café, and felt like I had stepped into a time warp. Suddenly I had the sensation of being back in the cafés of my Parisian childhood in the late 1960s. A few Formica tables and a grand circular staircase gave me the impression of being in a Nouvelle Vague film set. The bright orange patterns on the wall reminded me of hippie shirts with their pie-scoop collars. The plaque engraved on the wall showing the name of the architect and the year the place was created confirmed my impression of déjà-vu. 

What also struck me was the silence. This is the old-fashioned way. No loud, trendy music, no TV tuned to a news channel with non-stop disaster announcements. Just you and your coffee. 

In this discreet, unpretentious little café, it’s as if nothing has changed in over 60 years. Even the gruff owner would fit right in with the black-and-white TV series my parents never missed, called Le Commissaire Maigret.  

As I stared at the pile of immaculate plates behind the counter, the crispy baguette and the fresh butter to prepare the customers’ tartines, I wondered why this café was called Le Fontenoy. Was it a nostalgic nod to Louis XV and the famous Battle of Fontenoy in 1745, which took place on the border between France and Belgium? Not at all. Fontenoy is the name of an old French cigarette brand from the 1960s, which has since disappeared. 

Because the Café Fontenoy is also a tobacco shop. Please don’t misunderstand me – I don’t want you to think I’m promoting cigarette sales here. Personally, I don’t smoke and I hate the smell of cigarettes when I drink my coffee. I was the first to welcome the French law banning smoking in cafés. But not everyone is like me, and there are people who do smoke in Paris.

I also asked myself another question: how long will this type of modest, vintage café stand up to fashionable coffee shops and their trendy baristas?

As I sipped my espresso, I watched people coming and going, buying their cigarettes and then settling down at the counter next to me to have a coffee too. Suddenly, I had another shock. I had the intuition that this was exactly where André Malraux bought his cigarettes and came to drink his first coffee of the day. Malraux smoked a lot. He is always depicted with a cigarette in his hand or on his lips. And he lived exactly just above this café-tabac. A plaque in memory of this great man can be found where he lived in on Rue du Bac. 

I was deeply moved by the idea that this legend, who rests in the Pantheon, had perhaps been in this café here, before me. André Malraux is a bit like Indiana Jones mixed with Hemingway and Kennedy. Malraux was at once an anti-colonial intellectual, an elegant adventurer (in the mysterious Khmer temples of the Cambodian jungle), an anti-fascist militant (on the side of the Spanish Republicans during the Spanish Civil War), a writer who won the Prix Goncourt for his famous book La Condition humaine (Man’s Fate ), a resistance fighter for Free France during the 2nd World War and, last but not least, a charismatic politician.

He was General de Gaulle’s first Minister of Culture. It was Malraux who initiated the protection of the 17th-century mansions in the Marais district that were falling into disrepair. It’s also thanks to his intervention that you can still admire the 19th-century facades of Paris’s cafés and bakeries. For it is strictly forbidden to demolish them, whatever the commercial activity of the new store replacing them. This fight to preserve France’s heritage is better known as the Malraux Law of 1965. 

Malraux was definitely something, I thought, as I left the Fontenoy to hurry to my customers. As I closed the café door, I remembered the chorus of a popular song written in 2001 by a famous French singer, Alain Souchon. The title of this song  is La vie ne vaut rien ( Life is worthless ). Souchon was inspired by a quote from André Malraux, who has his hero say in his novel The Conquerors (1928): “I’ve learned that life is worth nothing, but that nothing is worth a life.” This means that no matter how difficult life may sometimes seem to you, you must never lose hope. 

As I walked into the café, I was in a morose mood at the thought of walking for two hours in the freezing cold, even though it wasn’t even 9 a.m. on a Saturday! (I hate working weekends.) But as I left the Fontenoy, I had a big smile on my face at the idea of sharing the Paris I love with enthusiastic American women. My perspective had totally changed thanks to Malraux and this old-fashioned café. 

Walking briskly and lightly, in a joyous mood, I began to sing at the top of my lungs in the Rue du Bac the chorus of the song: “Life is worth nothing, nothing, life is worth nothing , but nothing, nothing … Nothing is worth life.”