Restauration bourbonienne

Restauration bourbonienne, as the period is framed in this passage, covers the first twelve years of the Restoration. Rather than surveying political events, the narrative evokes the era through a familiar institution of student life: the Flicoteaux Restaurant, remembered as a refuge amid hunger and poverty.

Period and Setting

The passage links the period to students lodging in the Latin Quarter: few, the narrator suggests, would have passed through those years without frequenting Flicoteaux. The restaurant thus serves as a marker of ordinary life during the Restoration, its clientele and modest fare anchoring the historical span in daily experience.

Student Life and Memory

Flicoteaux’s prices made a filling meal accessible: three dishes cost eighteen sous with a small carafe of wine or a bottle of beer, and twenty-two sous with a bottle of wine. Bread was served liberally, in six-pound loaves cut into quarters. Its plainness stood against the showy displays of other restaurateurs; inside, two narrow, low rooms met at a right angle, with long tables reminiscent of a monastic refectory.

The establishment’s old-fashioned appearance had been preserved before the July Days, and the narrator presents it as a source of durable memories for the generations of students who ate there. Through this recollection, the Restoration becomes not an abstract political interval but a lived period associated with inexpensive meals, crowded student quarters, and a restaurant whose modest comforts outlasted its customers’ youth.