À la Civette: snuff and chess at a Paris tobacconist that dates itself to 1716

À la Civette stands at 157 rue Saint-Honoré, with a civet on its sign. By its own account it opened in 1716, which would make it the oldest tobacconist in Paris.

In the early 1700s, taking snuff helped mark out the elite from ordinary people, who generally smoked their tobacco. The shop's own history ties it to snuff through the chess players of the Café de la Régence, whom it calls "always fond of the best snuff".

A musk for perfume and tobacco

The civet explains the name. The animal was famous for a musky secretion that perfumers prized. The shop says the name was chosen because civet musk was found to fix the scent of perfumes, "and no doubt that of tobacco too" (our translation).

In its raw state the musk was hard to love. "In its pure state, civet has, to nearly all persons, a most disgusting odor," the perfumer Septimus Piesse wrote in 1857, "but when diluted to an infinitesimal portion, its perfume is agreeable." Perfumers used it as a fixative, to make a delicate scent last, and Piesse noted that French perfumers used it more than English ones did.

Piesse also warned perfumers to use tonka bean sparingly, or people would call their perfume "snuffy", thanks to "its well-known use in the boxes of those who indulge in the titillating dust."

Dorothée Spriet Weisz owned and managed the shop in 2016. She told Cigar Aficionado that in 1716 the shop was "a very little tobacco shop or perfume shop, we don't know, inside the Palais-Royal", and that even the month it opened is lost.

The best tobacco in Paris

The shop's history says it was made famous in 1754 by the young Duchess of Chartres, Louise de Bourbon-Conti. She declared that it sold "le meilleur tabac de Paris", the best tobacco in Paris.

The same history puts the shop opposite the Café de la Régence from the start, though Spriet Weisz places the 1716 shop inside the Palais-Royal itself. It says the best chess players in Paris met at the café.

The Régence had been the city's great chess café since the early 1700s, on the square in front of the Palais-Royal. Philidor played there. Diderot set the opening of Rameau's Nephew there: "If the weather is too cold or too rainy, I take refuge in the Regency Café."

The story the shop tells

Spriet Weisz told Cigar Aficionado the family legend of how trade began. The woman who owned the shop was crying over poor sales when the king's sister came in and asked what was wrong. The princess promised that from then on royalty would buy from À la Civette.

On the move

Cigar Aficionado reports that À la Civette moved at least four times in its first 150 years, always near the Palais-Royal. It's been at 157 rue Saint-Honoré since 1876. The Régence moved to 161 rue Saint-Honoré in 1854, a few doors along.

Who came in

The shop counts Casanova, Voltaire, Benjamin Franklin and Napoleon among its customers, and Napoleon at least was a known snuff-taker. Cigar Aficionado and Paris Zigzag add others, from Diderot and Rousseau to Danton and Robespierre. These names come from the shop and from articles about it, and none of them cites a sales record.

The shop, and our shelf

Cigar Aficionado found the shop still trading in 2016, selling cigars and pipe tobacco.

Piesse warned perfumers off smelling of snuff, yet some snuffs are scented on purpose. On our shelves, Fribourg & Treyer French Carotte is scented with violet and almond over a spiced base.

Sources

• "Notre histoire", À la Civette (the shop's own history and current address: the name, the 1754 remark and the Duchess's name, its customers, the Café de la Régence and its snuff-loving chess players). alacivette.com
• Mervyn Rothstein, "A la Civette, Paris Tobacconist, Celebrates 300th Anniversary", Cigar Aficionado, 16 June 2016 (the owner's account, the founding legend, the moves and customers). cigaraficionado.com
• "De quand date le plus vieux tabac de Paris...", Paris Zigzag (the sign and further customers). pariszigzag.fr
• G. W. Septimus Piesse, The Art of Perfumery (1857), entries on civet and tonquin beans. Project Gutenberg
• "Café de la Régence", Wikipedia (locations, dates and Philidor). wikipedia.org
• Denis Diderot, Rameau's Nephew, trans. Ian C. Johnston. marxists.org
• "Snuff (tobacco)", Wikipedia, on snuff and the elite, and its famous users. wikipedia.org
• Fribourg & Treyer French Carotte, Mr Snuff product page (scent notes). mrsnuff.com