Spiced Mulled Wine with an Explorer: A Parisienne’s Café Adventures

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

On my birthday last month, I went looking for a chic tea room in Paris to celebrate with my son. I searched but couldn’t find one. I had the choice between sitting at a table near the toilets or near a family of very noisy French tourists. I figured that wasn’t the best way to celebrate a birthday. So I thought of plan B. A café instead of a tea room. The good thing about Parisian cafés is that they rarely disappoint.

I called my son to join me in the magnificent Galerie Vivienne, sheltered from the wind and the biting February cold. The Galerie Vivienne is a hushed shopping arcade dating from the early 19th century, with Italian mosaic floors and elegant, old-fashioned boutiques. And then we rushed into the café at the end of the gallery, called Le Bougainville.

Pushing open the door, we took a leap back in time. The atmosphere is deliciously retro. The bluish neon lights give the place a 60s feel – fitting, since that’s precisely when I was born, in 1966. The wooden chairs, with their patina of age, add a touch of authenticity, as do the vintage advertising posters adorning the walls. Small curtains frame the windows, offering a breathtaking view of the Galerie Vivienne.

Our waitress was smiling and friendly, giving the place a convivial atmosphere. To warm up, we ordered two mulled wines. Looking at the cinnamon stick and clove that surrounded the orange peel of his hot drink, my son said lyrically, “In the beginning were the spices.”

It’s the first sentence of one of his favorite books, written by the Austrian author Stefan Zweig about the Portuguese explorer Magellan. And I, inspired by the place, started telling him about another explorer, Louis-Antoine de Bougainville.

We all know Bougainville because of the exotic plant that bears his name, the bougainvillea. Bougainville was one of the great French explorers of the 18th century, whose book about his circumnavigation of the globe was a huge success in Europe. The delicious smell of cinnamon reminded me that Bougainville had explored the Dutch islands of the Moluccas, in Indonesia, nicknamed “the spice island” at the time.

Bougainville even had a major influence on the philosophers of the Enlightenment. His account of the paradise island of Tahiti inspired not only Diderot, but also Rousseau and his famous myth of the “noble savage.”

And it was on Bougainville’s ship that the first woman circumnavigated the globe. Her name was Jeanne Barret. She had disguised herself as a man to follow, and do research with her companion, the botanist Philbert Commerson – the very man who discovered the bougainvillea. There’s even a French stamp bearing her image.

But what is less well known is that Bougainville played an important role as naval officer alongside the American insurgents in the famous Battle of Chesapeake Bay in 1781.

When it was time to pay, I opened my purse and said, “Ah that’s funny, because in the Middle Ages, spices and cash weren’t so different.” Spices, which were worth a lot of money, were sometimes used as currency.

We left the café and looked up to read the plaque inlaid above the entrance, which reminds us that this where Louis-Antoine Bougainville died. Then my son said to me with a smile, “Mom, you’re going to choose your birthday present, but I’m not sure whether to pay in pepper or cinnamon ….”.

DETAILS
Le Bougainville
5, rue de la Banque, 2nd arrondissement
Open daily