THE HISTORY OF PARISIAN CAFES
Brasserie Lipp (2/2)

At 14 years old, he went to Paris. His brother a retailer at Montmartre put him up. Like many of his compatriates he carried coal then became a bath boy, another Auvergne speciality. There it was the bath that you carry, then the buckets of boiling water to fill it. That of course, without putting a drop on the floor. If you want to have a tip....

Marcellin Cazes finally joined the café world as morning assistant in a café on the boulevard Poissonière. Three years later, he is a waiter at l'Electricité, a Faubourg-Montmartre business. Sixteen hours a day carrying trays and bottles. Little by little his tips mounted up to enough capital to start his first business.

He bought his first business which he ran with his wife on the boulevard Voltaire near the Bastille. Then he set up in the Halle district. That's where he survived the war in 1914.

Twice wounded, it was miraculous that Marcellin returned to Paris. In 1920, at the age of 32, Marcellin dreamed only of returning to how it was before. He took out a large loan and crossed the Seine for a beautiful business on the boulevard Saint-Germain Près. A business that had only ten tables and false walls. It was Lipp's.

At Lipp's, his wife took care of the cooking. The house is known for it's good sauerkraut and other Alsacian dishes. No question of changing a formula that works. Marcelllin, started work on the atmosphere. He rigourously selected the staff and especially the customers.
Obviously, the district helped a lot. So the nearby theatre group of Vieux-Colombier regularly came to Lipp's every evening with the famous French actor Louis Jouvet. In 1925, Marcellin double the surface of the place. This wasn't too much for the expanding clientele of the place.

Many actors pass by, but also writers like the pilot Saint-Exupéry, joined by André Malraux who celebrated there his prize Goncourt in 1933 for the human condition. Politicians and especially ministers of different governments also became regulars. From the right of the left, they defied each other's look even if the sauerkraut that they were eating came from the same pot. Marcellin Cazes rubbed his hands; at his place you fill up. The kitchen goes mad and you have to take turns at hte beer pump.
In 1934, one of Lipp's customers, suggests a Cazes prize which still exists today. First literary prize.

During the occupation, Lipp could have been visited by SS officers, members of the French gestapo, or rich dealers after the plunderings of jewish property. But no, Cazes seved beer to writers who refused to collaborate. The day of Liberation of Paris Cazes paid for champagne for his customers. Several days later, a war correpondant of the US army enjoys himself in the brasserie. It's Ernest Hemingway who has his glass of cognac filled by a very happy Marcellin Cazes.

In the 50's, Roger Cazes takes over from his father. It's the great parliamentary time of Lipp. All the parties of the time MRP, radicals, socialists share the same place. Sometimes to bring back calm in the room Marcellin rings hisbell.

The bell returned the evening of the 10th of May 1981 with the election of François Mitterrand. That evening, the brasserie was transformed into a madhouse. At each entry of a well-known political face, one camp applauded whilst the other camp booed, the new arrival according to his political allegiance.
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