"Coffee reached Western Europe in the third quarter of the seventeenth century, brought by mariners who had acquired a taste for it in the . It was first established at seaports, but spread rapidly to major cities inland. Considered a dangerous stimulant, it was closely monitored by municipal and royal authorities who licensed and taxed its use. They also worried about its association with those citizens who made the new coffee houses into social and political gathering places. Already in 1675, Charles II of England tried to close down the coffee houses as places of sedition (popular pressure made him desist, however), and for the next two centuries they were frequently subjected to government surveillance and suppression. In Paris... [b]y the middle of the eighteenth century the café-tavern and café-restaurant were firmly embedded... Over the next hundred years they increased in both numbers and variety... Because tobacco and alcohol... were consumed in the cafés, and because a number of them became singing clubs... [c]offee, alcohol, and song were regarded as attributes of political opposition, so one of Louis Napoleon's first decrees (29 December 1851) put cafés under direct governmental authority and placed an outright ban on group singing in cafés; thousands were closed... Despite police surveilance, cafés generally prospered during the Second Empire. They took on new forms that are familiar to us from the lives of famous writers and impressionist painters."