I just found my copy of The Exploits and Triumphs, In Europe, Of Paul Morphy, The Chess Champion. Now, the following passage below is one of my favorite passages in this book. Specifically, it describes the commotion/excitement that Morphy had aroused in people after they had witnessed him playing eight simultaneous chess games blindfolded (classic blindfold chess with no sight of any board) for hours at the Cafe de la Regence .
"Forthwith commenced such a scene as I scarcely hope to again witness. Morphy stepped from the armchair in which he had been almost immovable for ten consecutive hours, without having tasted a morsel of any thing, even water, during the whole of the period; yet as fresh, apparently, as when he sat down. The English and Americans, of whom there were scores present, set up stentorian Anglo-Saxon cheers, and the French joined in as the whole crowd made a simultaneous rush at our hero. The waiters of the Cafe had formed a conspiracy to carry Morphy in triumph on their shoulders, but the multitude was so compact , they could not get near him, and finally, had to abandon the attempt. Great bearded fellows grasped his hands, and almost shook his arms out of the sockets, and it was nearly half an hour before we could get out of the Cafe. A well known citizen of New York, Thomas Bryan, Esq., got on one side of him and M. de Riviere on the other, and "Le Pere Morel,"--body and soul for our hero--fought a passage through the crowd by main strength, and we finally got into the street.
There the scene was repeated; the multitude was greater out of doors than in the cafe, and the shouting, if possible, more deafening. Morphy, Messrs. Bryan and De Riviere and myself, made for the Palais Royal, but the crowd still followed us, and when we got to the guardhouse of the Imperial Guard, sergeants de ville and soldiers came running out to see whether a new revolution was on the tapis. We rushed into the Restaurant Foy, up stairs, and into a private room; whilst, as we subsequently learned, the landlord made anxious inquiries as to the cause of all this excitement. Having done our duty to a capital supper, we got off by a backstreet, and thus avoided the crowd, who, we were informed, awaited our reappearance in the quadrangle of the Palais Royal." Fredrick Milnes Edge, The Exploits and Triumphs of Paul Morphy, pp:163-164,
"Forthwith commenced such a scene as I scarcely hope to again witness. Morphy stepped from the armchair in which he had been almost immovable for ten consecutive hours, without having tasted a morsel of any thing, even water, during the whole of the period; yet as fresh, apparently, as when he sat down. The English and Americans, of whom there were scores present, set up stentorian Anglo-Saxon cheers, and the French joined in as the whole crowd made a simultaneous rush at our hero. The waiters of the Cafe had formed a conspiracy to carry Morphy in triumph on their shoulders, but the multitude was so compact , they could not get near him, and finally, had to abandon the attempt. Great bearded fellows grasped his hands, and almost shook his arms out of the sockets, and it was nearly half an hour before we could get out of the Cafe. A well known citizen of New York, Thomas Bryan, Esq., got on one side of him and M. de Riviere on the other, and "Le Pere Morel,"--body and soul for our hero--fought a passage through the crowd by main strength, and we finally got into the street.
There the scene was repeated; the multitude was greater out of doors than in the cafe, and the shouting, if possible, more deafening. Morphy, Messrs. Bryan and De Riviere and myself, made for the Palais Royal, but the crowd still followed us, and when we got to the guardhouse of the Imperial Guard, sergeants de ville and soldiers came running out to see whether a new revolution was on the tapis. We rushed into the Restaurant Foy, up stairs, and into a private room; whilst, as we subsequently learned, the landlord made anxious inquiries as to the cause of all this excitement. Having done our duty to a capital supper, we got off by a backstreet, and thus avoided the crowd, who, we were informed, awaited our reappearance in the quadrangle of the Palais Royal." Fredrick Milnes Edge, The Exploits and Triumphs of Paul Morphy, pp:163-164,
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