BUSINESS ABROAD: The Democratic Revolution

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During the strife-torn 1870s in Paris, a passing proletarian stopped by a sidewalk table at the Café de la Paix to jeer at an elderly champagne-sipper: "You! We didn't get you in '48, but we won't miss in the next revolution." Last week the revolution finally engulfed the Café de la Paix. After 86 years as a bastion of fashion (and fancy prices), the famed restaurant turned over one-eighth of its floor space to an American-style snack bar. Georges Marcovich, the café's Manager of External Relations, i.e., pressagent, explained: "We want to attract the salaried American vacationer who gets tired of five-course meals at high prices and wants some ham and eggs [price: 65¢]. We have tried to democratize ourself and yet remain the perfect gentleman."

Pacific Nightmare. In the interest of democratized gentility, the café's Pacific Snack Room (overlooking the Place de l'Opéra) has been remodeled with glass walls and concealed lighting under supervision of the government, which classes the Café de la Paix as an artistic monument. Though most of the restaurant's specialities, e.g., la bouillabaisse de Marius, may be ordered at the counter, the management is making its big pitch for the tourist with short-order dishes that would have made Brillat-Savarin shudder. Items: Pacific Nightmare, a 95¢ pie filled with minced chicken and fresh mushrooms; Romeo and Juliette Tenderloin Steakie with watercress ($1.35); and 75¢ Frenchified "hush puppies," French fried cheese balls with salad.

It was such celebrated patrons as Authors Guy de Maupassant and Emile Zola, Composer Jules Massenet and Ballet Impresario Sergei Diaghilev who created the Paris legend: "Sit long enough in the Café de la Paix and you will see everyone worth seeing." During World War II, the restaurant served General De Gaulle his first meal in liberated Paris. In 1945, after it had stalled the Germans' best efforts to turn it into an officers' club, the Café de la Paix was about to be commandeered for U.S. officers when a worldly U.S. colonel put his foot down. "Requisition the Café de la Paix?" he asked. "Why not requisition Notre Dame?"

Around the Corner, Pam-Pam. But for the Café de la Paix. the end of World War II nearly proved disastrous. As prices skyrocketed, the carriage trade moved on to less expensive places; Frenchmen still crowded the chestnut-shaded sidewalk tables, but they dawdled longer over aperitifs or coffee, and U.S. tourists were warned off by the high prices noted in guidebooks. The Café de la Paix might have toppled like a French Cabinet had it not been for energetic Paul Chapotin, 41, son-in-law of the restaurant's second-generation owner, 74-year-old André Millon. To boost the family's sagging revenues, Chapotin started the successful Pam-Pam chain of quick-lunch restaurants, two years ago quietly opened a Pam-Pam in the Café de la Paix bar, around the corner from the Place de 1'Opéra.

Chapotin hopes that tourists who drop in for hush puppies and Cokes will come back for frogs' legs and the cognac that Founder André Millon laid down three-quarters of a century before the democratic revolution.