The history

From the Founding Fathers, Sulpice Debauve and Auguste Gallais to the 1900 Paris World Fair.

The oldest ads claiming the merit of Debauve & Gallais chocolates, indicate that Sulpice Debauve is a "former chemist approved by His Majesty Louis XVI", but more than that, "His Majesty Charles X's chocolate maker". In those times, an establishment approved by the King's house was the best guaranties of quality. A quality the kings loved and appreciated, especially the Bourbons, starting with Louis XIII who first tasted chocolate thanks to Spain's Infanta, Anne of Austria, and Philippe III's daughter who quickly made it a trend at the King's court.


In 1800, eight years before the continental Blockade which entailed a rise of the prices on the French market and the closing down of many a chocolate shop, Sulpice Debauve, born December 6th 1757 and married to Catherine Duchemin, opens his first chocolate shop on the left bank of Paris, at 4 Faubourg Saint-Germain, "near Saint-Guillaume street, across Saint-Dominique street". The first Parisian chocolate maker of this kind is thought to have appeared around 1670.

Sulpice Debauve is a "bright and well-learned man, whose medical knowledge matches his talents in this new found direction in which he will undoubtedly tiumph over his many rivals", Grimod de la Reynière wrote ten years later.
That is when Sulpice Debauve chooses his motto: "Utile Dulci"; which he borrows from Horatio, and engraves it on the front of his chocolate shop, a shop he calls "A la Renommée des chocolats de France" ("Fame - fine reputation - of French Chocolates").

This bulimic chocolate shopkeeper keeps some sensibilities from his former career as a chemist and decides to adorn his new shop with the half-moon shaped wood counter, which traditionnaly decorated the beautiful drugstores of these days. Percier and Fontaine, Napoleon's architects who designed the Malmaisonfor Joséphine, create behind the facade a warm décor, made of antic marble columns adding beautifully to the half-moon counter.

Sulpice Debauve had most probably read the findings of doctor Stephanius Blancardius from Amsterdam who, almost a century before, in 1705, claimed: "Chocolate is not only pleasurable to the taste, but truly is a balm for the mouth, keeping glands and mucous membranes healthy. That is why those who drink it have such a sweet breath." A doctor recommending chocolate consumption as a therapy must have pleased our chemist / chocolate maker very much, all the more so since he said: "Do eat chocolate, as it frees you from the cough that shakes your entire body like a fury. It softens the ills better yet than any other syrup. Come and have some if our digestion is difficult. You will recover your strength in no time, and your winter will turn into a verdurous spring..."

In 1804, Grimod de la Reynière, in his Almanach for gourmets writes about Debauve: "We cannot give a complete description of all the chocolates this skilled makers creates, as he has made some according to the Spanish, Piedmont and Italian's methods, so much so that Madrid, Florence, Genoa, and Turin hold hands in his shop, and compete with Bayonne for the honors of being the place where the best chocolate comes from. But we shall speak only of his analeptic chocolate, made with Persian salep..."

Quickly, Debauve is appointed King Louis XVIII's chocolate supplier --then Charles X's and finally Louis Philippe's. The chocolate maker's fame reaches all corners of Europe, in Germany, Switzerland, Italy and England, where the popularity of chocolate is on the rise, even though each country likes to cultivate their own speciality according to their tradition.

In Le Figaro, one can read a vibrant article on Mr. Debauve's chocolate saying: "Thirty years ago in France, chocolate was nothing more than breakfast for old people; it has become analeptic chocolate made out of Persian salep, created by Mr. Debauve; it is altogether light and nutritional; it is suitable to people of weak constitution, delicate lungs, or to people who have chronic illness or nervous stomachs".

In his Monographie du cacao, A. Gallais expands on the healing benefits of chocolate: "Salep is nothing else than a dried up root of some type of wild orchid that grows in the middle of Persian woods and fields. The roots of the orchys morio, mascula, and bifolia are generally used. Salep is regarded in Persia and in all of Orient as an aphrodisiac". In Debauve's days, salep was used in meals, in the Orient together with musk, amber and cardamom. Then Mr. Gallais quotes doctor Loiseleur Deslongchamps, author of Dictionnaires des sciences naturelles: "Salep is one of the most nutritional vegetable substances ; we prescribe it with success in cases of chronic illness with great exhaustion; it is very pleasant mixed with chocolate, as it brings out its delicate flavour".

That same year 1804, Debauve opens no fewer than sixty-five new shops all over France, similar to today's franchises. He also launches a shop on the right bank of Paris, at the Palais du Tribunal, near the Théâtre Français, and he calls it "Galerie Noire", then at the optician's, Mr. Rochette, located 114 galerie de Pierre, also known as "des Bons Enfants", also near the Palais Royal. Two other shops open up rue de la Paix and Faubourg Poissonnière, before the ones in Chartres, Dreux, Rambouillet, Dunkerque, Lille, Cambrais and Nîmes. Mail order and subscription sales increase in popularity, and chocolates are dispatched by horse and carriage. In 1810, Grimod de la Reynière writes a lively portrait of Debauve in which he explains to his readers that there are no fewer than "sixty-three shops throughout the French Empire's principal cities, as well as throughout allied countries", and adds that this success is due to "the owner's enlightenment, talent, zeal, and activity - or rather to the owner's friendly, noble and discriminating diplomacy, a success such that Mr. Debauve's name has outshined all other chocolate makers". Grimod de la Reynière ended his article demanding new shops to be created: "I demand he opens up new shops in each city or town regardless of its size, so that everyone can enjoy the medicinal and sensual benefits of the best chocolates known to date".

In 1818, Debauve moves his main shop to the 26 rue des Saints-Pères, staying faithful to the faubourg Saint Germain. In 1819 for the first time and again in 1823 Debauve wins the first "Mention Honorable" awarded on the French chocolate industry. In 1823, he takes in his nephew A. Gallais, also a chemist, as an associate in order to create and distribute his dietary chocolates, - then known as "health chocolates" - made with almond milk, vanilla and orange blossom water. Four years later Gallais publishes his Monographie du Cacao, which becomes a milestone for chocolate lovers and experts by offering a new and scientific approach to cocoa.

Gallais is also the inventor of Théréobrome, the first instant cold chocolate in the history of chocolate confectionery, good for women, children and "people of weak constitution, sensitive to the summer heat, whose delicate palate can appreciate the sweet flavor of caraway and soconusco mixed with sugar, vanilla and almond milk". Thanks to Théréobrome, they can now drink instant cold chocolate with milk, which becomes at once a "savory and invigorating digestive". The Debauve & Gallais establishment sold it in bottle (the equivalent of fifteen breakfasts), vanilla or almond milk flavored, priced between 3and 5 francs.

In 1829, Debauve & Gallais invent for their laboratory a new cylinder machine to mill the cocoa beans, made of white marble on granite, as opposed to the type of iron cylinders used by some Barcelona chocolate makers. From then on, the workers would no longer crush beans by hand. This new machine allows "a more regular work, better efficiency and a perfect grind. "Cocoa's flavor and smoothness are therefore unaltered, keeping all of their characteristics", as was then noted in a newspaper.

In one of its advertisements, Debauve & Gallais printed an excerpt from an article published in the newspaper Le Temps: "It is the medicinal characteristics of Debauve & Gallais' chocolates that make them unique. Prepared with utmost care with a revolutionary type of cylinders that do not taint the chocolates with the unpleasant taste of iron, nor its astringent quality, Debauve & Gallais' chocolates are pure, and made of carefully selected beans, which makes them perfect."

In yet another newspaper one can read a testimony signed "A subscriber", from a person convinced of the positive effects from regularly eating Debauve & Gallais chocolates. After asserting the merits of cocoa and hot chocolate in general, this subscriber had one reservation to make: "No matter what, chocolate is the only thing that can keep or make you healthy. as well as to satisfy the most discriminating taste buds, there is only one place to go: Debauve & Gallais'. Their prices are however quite high - 5, 6 and even 7 francs a pound! Nevertheless, these high prices do not scare one away when one knows that their beans are so perfectly roasted and crushed, which is difficult, and that they keep all the creaminess and sweetness which characterize the best cocoa, ans this is a rare feat. Therefore, a small and appropriately prepared amount is sufficient for someone who does not like to eat too much. Women, people with poor health, and convalescents can thus have a pleasant and healthy meal..."

In 1832, analeptic chocolate attracts doctors who prescribe it as dietary purposes, as a protection against cholera, but also to convalescents. Some doctors do not hesitate to prescribe specifically Debauve & Gallais' chocolate disks for anxiety and nervous stomachs. Others suggest replacing fruits with hot chocolate mixed with milk and water.

In 1835, A. Gallais discovers a milk preservation process which he names lactoline; this pioneering process was destined which opened the door to most of the modern applications of the candy industry.

As the price of success, Debauve & Gallais's products are increasingly counterfeited, so they create a specific label guaranteeing the quality of their products and distinguishing them from fakes.

When Sulpice Debauve dies on the 12th April 1836 at the age of 79, its works were praised by all the contemporary notabilities in medecine: Portal, Alibert, Montègre, Corvisart...A. Gallais dies soon afterward but not until 1840, 4 years after Sulpice Debauve's death, does the company change hands. Its new owner, M. Théry, kept alive the Debauve & Gallais name and the tradition which made it famous throughout France and Europe.

Then in 1858, Mr. Hugon takes over the company and builds a state-of-the-art factory complete with the first steam moulders. In 1867, he unveils his assortment of chocolates during the World Fair and is awarded the bronze medal. Five years later, in 1872, at a similar fair in Lyon, he receives the highest award, the gold metal.

In 1873, G. Hugon, his son, takes over. A note found in the company's archives reads as follows: "The Company keeps growing. The daily production is now up to fifteen hundred kilograms, and new improvements will double it." True to Horatio's motto "Utile Dulci" inscribed on the shop front, Mr. Hugon wants to sell his merchandise at a fair price while preserving its quality, to make chocolate consumption accessible to most people, and he believes to have succeeded, as he offers a high quality chocolate for 3 francs a kilogram. We then learn that Hugon's son is awarded in 1878 a gold medal at the World Fair and a gold medal at the Anvers World Fair in 1885. The latter rewards the new company specialty: the "Chocolat Éclair", sweet powder chocolate that instantly dissolves in boiling milk or water, "without any preparation".

In 1889, the officials mention the presence of Debauve & Gallais during the French industry products fair (where it is once again rewarded), praising the shops of France, Belgium and Switzerland. "We can say Mr. Debauve has paved the way for the industry which has seen such a growth in France. Therefore, in order to reward him for his efforts, the jury of the Exposition Nationale, which took place in Paris in 1819, gave him an honorable mention. Although modest, this award, being the first of its kind, was significant to the French chocolate industry. The title of patented supplier to the King, Charles X, added to the already well-deserved company's reputation".

Last but not the least, Debauve & Gallais received a third gold medal at the 1900 Paris World Fair.