Café de la Régence

The Café de la Régence in the 19th century

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

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 Café's masters include, but are not limited to:

•   Paul Morphy
•   François-André Danican Philidor (who often met with Ben Franklin)
•   Legall de Kermeur (Philidor's teacher)
•   Jules Arnous de Rivière
•   Adolf Anderssen
•   Samuel Rosenthal

Addresses

It was opened as the Café de la Place du Palais-Royal near the Palais-Royal, Paris in 1681. 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 and the Office national marocain du tourisme (National Moroccan Tourist Office) took over the site in 1918.

Additional information

• The great tournament of Paris 1867, won by Ignatz von Kolisch above Szymon Winawer and Wilhelm Steinitz, was played there.
• La Société des Amateurs, was based here.
• In 1742, the celebrated French writers and philosophers, Diderot and Rousseau, met at this café
• Karl Marx met Frederich Engels at this café on 28. August 1844.
• According to the painter Oscar Parviainen, 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.
• The Norwegian painter Edvard Munch visited the café on May 4th 1885, during his first visit to France to study the French impressionists.

Biography