Café de la Régence

The Café de la Régence (French pronunciation: [kafed(ə)laʁeʒɑ̃s]) in Paris was an important European centre of chess in the 18th and 19th centuries. All important chess masters of the time played there.[citation needed]

The Café's masters included:

• Paul Morphy
• François-André Danican Philidor
• 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.
• Karl Marx met Friedrich Engels for the second time at this café on 28 August 1844.
• 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.
• 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.

See also

Bibliography

• Shenk, David (2006). The Immortal Game: A history of chess. Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-51010-1.
• Metzner, Paul (1998). – 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

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