Of Carême it is necessary I should say a little before he proceeds to tell his own story. If you believe him (see passim the six volumes of his culinary works) he was the Homer and Virgil, the Corneille and Dryden, the Pope and Boileau, the Byron and De Beranger of cookery. Every other art, noble or ignoble, every other superiority, literary, legal, histrionic, saltatory, medicinal, modistical, may be contested with the Gauls ; bat great and little of all nations, peers and pork-men, boyars and butchers, graffs and gastronomers, of whatever land, all by common consent agree in shouting, in loud cosmopolitan acclaim, the glories and the greatness of Carême. "He was a man," says one of his disciples, "whose tension and activity of mind were never exhausted ; the more tedious and difficult were his duties, the more brilliant he emerged from them." The greatest men in ancient and modern times have written their own history. Plato in his choicest dialogues gives us an insight into his own character; Cicero, in his work "De Oratore," paints himself under a feigned name ; Caesar writes us an account of his own exploits in his "Commentaries," as the Duke of Wellington does in his "Despatches; "Montecuculli penned his own Memoirs; and Napoleon laboured at the "Memoriel de St. Hélene;" why, therefore, should not a greater man in his own estimation than any one among them all, reveal his own precious history and the mysteries of his science, and lay patent to the public tie simple grandeur of his batteries de cuisine ? Ay, why not? Open the pages of his instructive Memoirs and Autobiography, and see whether there is any one of the Useful Knowledge Society heroes who have gone so far in the pursuit of knowledge under imminent and impending difficulties, as that really noble fellow Anthony Carême? Did he not abandon the first families to write his cookery and the practice of some great contemporaries ? for, observe you, Carême is not always peering a Brodignagian / under your nose, or flourishing the flaunting motto of " Ego et Rex Meus " before your perplexed eyes. No, this good savoury Samaritan cook has some bowels, some thoughts of others, some kindliness for the absent and the departed. He seems always with the modesty of real merit to say, though of the strongest in his generation, " Vixere fortes Agamemnona." But his virtues were not merely negative, they were of the most positive kind. He would only accept places " where his taste for study would not be interfered with;" for his ambition was " serious and elevated." Then he felt, poignantly felt, " the misery of living among men destitute of education."
Rousseau, in that most eloquent of books, " The Confessions," tells us under what circumstances certain of his writings were composed. The gruff Sam. Johnson, the delightful debt-contracting Oliver Goldsmith, the ingenious and fantastic William Hazlitt are equally communicative; but, maugre this copious sincerity, what are these men to Carême ? Is there any one sentence in all they have ever written equal to the following ? " From the time I arranged the sideboard of the Saxon ambassador, the thought of the ' Patissier Royale,' and the ' Cui- sinier Parisien,' entered my head." Cause and effect are here beautifully, lucidly transparent. Dr. Brown and Dugald Stewart, and all the Scotch mystifiers, might have written on the subject till the crack of doom, and left the darkness more dim, and the subject more perplexed; it is only Carême who has made, in throwing off this bright sentence, the doctrine quite plain.
"It was at the little inn at Llangollen," says Hazlitt, "after a supper, that I wrote such a sketch " (which he names). See how great geniuses fall on the same style and method. "It was in the night," says Carème, "after a short sleep, that I lately dictated to my daughter my most recent chapters."
"In the busiest period of my service with Alexander," says this ingenious maker of sauces, "I never once abandoned my evening notes." Admirable, glorious man ! who will not think in reading this of the parallel passage in the life of Fox, who, in the busiest conflicts of party, left the blaze and bustle of the Commons to read Aristophanes, as the other great performer left the blaze and bustle of the kitchen to compose his evening notes. It was owing to these "viginti annorurn lucubrationes" —it was owing to the "severe studies of the empire," that he was at length, after wrestling with difficulties unheard of, enabled "to seize on sugared entremets as his domain in fee." He had, too, all the independence of mind of a great genius, "the surveillance of Russia appeared degrading to him, and he promptly left the land of the tyrant and the slave. Nor was this all: such was the profoundness of his ennui in this work-a-day world of ours—in this heavy, muddy, manufacturing England—that he was forced to leave the service of George IV. to resume the composition of his works.
These works are collected in six volumes; and, as one great genius may be permitted to speak of another, "they are," says William Hall, cook to Thomas Peere Williams, and "conductor" of the parliamentary dinners of Viscount Canterbury, —"they are the productions of a man whose imagination greatly enlarged the variety of entrees and entremets previously practised, and whose clear and perspicuous details render them facile, not only to the artist who has already an advance in his profession, but also to those whose knowledge of the higher code of the kitchen has been necessarily limited."
The cooks of Rome and Athens stood in the market-place with aprons on, waiting to be hired for the occasion, and, after they had done the day's service, were ignominiously dismissed out of doors; but the cooks of our day are the friends and familiars of the great. "I conversed for more than an hour on gastronomy with Prince Esterhazy," says Carême, "and it is astonishing what a knowledge of the art he displayed." How different, however, is the fate of different authors! Cor- neille died in an unknown corner, in forlornness and distress; Goldsmith was always in want of a guinea; Samuel Johnson was often sorely pinched; glorious John Drydcn laboured hard for the day's dinner; Fielding was often in the hands of bailiffs, and Savage and Otway lived and laboured in misery and distress: but Carême, unlike these, gained not only immortality, but money ; not only praise, but good solid pudding. "My works," says he, "created me, exclusive of places whose emoluments I sacri6ced, a yearly income of more than 20,000 francs."
The most amusing of these works is undoubtedly an autobiography, which he did not live to finish. As it has not appeared in an English dress, I give the gem in a translation made at the time it was published.
"Although born of one of the poorest families of France, of a family which counted amongst its members five-and-twenty children—although my father, to save me, literally flung me into the street; Fortune, nevertheless, rapidly smiled on me, and a good fairy often took me by the hand, to lead me in the right way. In the eyes of my enemies (and I have many) I have more than once appeared the spoiled child of Fortune. I have accepted and refused, at various times, the finest places; I have abandoned the first families in Europe to write my practice of cookery and that of some great contemporaries gone to their account, whose principles and practice were engraved in my memory.
"I have only accepted good places, however, in families where my taste for study, and the views which I early entertained as to eminence in my profession, would not be interfered with. In the rapid passage to all these places heaps of money were offered me half a score of times, but I have not been over-desirous of mere wealth. My ambition was serious and elevated, and very early in life I desired to elevate my profession into the dignity of an art. It is precisely in this road that I have encountered the greatest obstructions. I have everywhere found idleness and envy—that miserable disposition of mind made wretched by every superiority, and above all by that of a comrade. But I have had more success than I desired, though the exceptionable position in which I have been placed has never diminished the misery of often living among men destitute of all education. For some years I have sought the means to give these men a moral culture (^education du caur) ; but I could not very clearly see my way, for this self- education in the midst of an active life is the most difficult of acquisition. The example of a family is necessary to educate our soul.
" Here and there I have some remembrance of seriously disagreeable passages, owing to the low rich (vilains riches) ; but I ought, on the other other hand, to recall to mind the good, the excellent conduct of gentlemen of truth, noble seigneurs that I have served. I have never had to complain but of the conduct of a parvenu, a name which the fellow decorated himself with without tact. It was under the Empire that I was most employed ; it was, above all, at this era that my studies were severe; "c'est surtout a cette epoque que j'ai fait des fortes etudes." My researches were made in good time; they were continuous ; they were serious. At M. de Talleyrand's I was under Boucher, chef des services of the prince. I there perfected myself in one of the principal parts of cookery, which I afterwards developed. Some years previously I had executed many parts of the beaux extras. A little later I had the management of the charming little dinners given by a distinguished and lofty-minded man, M. de Lavalette. I also cooked the dinners and arranged the sideboard of the Saxon Ambassador. It is from that period that the first decided thought of the "Patissier Royal" and of the "Cuisinier Parisien," first entered my mind. I now acquired the excellent habit of noting down in the evening, on returning home, the modifications that I had made in my labour, each day bringing some change. With pen in hand, I set down the reasons which had determined my mind. That which then particlarly occupied me was the finer parts of the oven's produce, and the cold sugared entremets. This labour is the most delicate portion of the art of the pastry-cook. I invented much in this branch—the foundation, the execution, the form—all these parts became easy to me, and I seized on them as of my domain in fee.
"I enjoyed perfect freedom at M. de Lavalette's to compose my dinners. It was there I did the most to realize the problem whose solution I early sought — the union of order, delicacy, and economy. The guests were assiduous at these dinners; they were generally members of the senate, learned men, celebrated officers, all connoisseurs.
"I laboured as a supernumerary at the Prince de Talleyrand's in 1814, when the Emperor Alexander arrived there. There I obtained the friendship and protection of an agreeable and distinguished man, the comptroller of his Imperial Majesty's household, M. Muller. Under his direction I became chief cook of the kitchens of the emperor, and was charged with all the expenses and the ordering of the bills of fare. This was the most active moment of my life; yet I did not renounce my custom, but continued to write what I had changed remodelled. I thus fixed ideas and combinations in my memory which might have been effaced from it. When the Emperor Alexander quitted Paris, I refused simultaneously the offer of the situation of chef de cuisine in many great houses. Soon after I decided to set out for Aix-la-Chapelle, still in the service of the Emperor Alexander. The congress of sovereigns was united, and M. Muller renewed his propositions of Paris, namely, that I should go and continue my labours at Petersburg. My mode of cookery pleased the emperor much, he said ; that was easy, for everything was noble and truly imperial in that great establishment of the czar. My emoluments were 2400 francs per month, and the culinary expenses. That which I directed at Aix-la-Chapelle was from 80,000 to 100,000 francs a month ; but this munificent expenditure was based on the greatest order and regularity, and the utmost strictness in making up the accounts.
"The Prince Louis de Rohan, a member of the congress, was one of my kindliest protectors. He advised me to enter into the regular service of the emperor. I wished for a delay, for I could not resolve to quit the researches and labours of digesting my works, which I had commenced at Paris.
"I then entered the service of Lord Stewart. The English embassy at Vienna was most brilliant at this time. Affairs called milord to London. It was there that Prince Orloff offered me anew the vacant places of maitre d hotel and chef des cuisines to the Emperor Alexander. I left London, and came to see at Paris M. Daniel, who had just left the service of the Emperor of Russia, rich and honoured. He advised me to start for Petersburg. ' You will not,' he exclaimed, ' find much serious rivalry there.' I made up my baggage, and embarked at Honfleur. Arrived at Cronstadt, my old friend Riquette presented me immediately to the Prince Wolkonski. I was selected for the place of maitre dhotel, but remarking that it was degraded by a humiliating surveillance, I determined to give it up. A few days afterwards I decided on leaving Petersburg, after having visited Moscow. I determined to return either to France or England, where I would find a good place in accordance with my habits and talents.
"I set sail, then, from Cronstadt; but the voyage was one continual tempest. AVe had been thirty-nine days at sea when we took shelter between Calais and Boulogne. On the morning of the thirty-ninth day, relief was afforded by large fishing smacks from Calais. After some days of repose, I returned to that Paris which I had.never ceased to regret, and on my arrival, entered the service of the Princess Bragation, a lady of high rank, good, clever, and mistress of a table which, in delicacy, dignity, and culinary novelties, yielded the palm to no lordly table, whether French or English. The taste of this lady was exquisite. She had a grace, a charm of conversation which were cited as models. I always served my dinner en maitre if hotel, and was uniformly complimented. The princess said to me one day, ' Carême, did they not tell you that you were entering the service of a capricious lady ?' I signified assent. ' You see the contrary, however, for I am delighted with your bills of fare, and accept them as you offer them.' I thanked the princess, and added that the characteristic quality of my cookery was, above all, that delicacy and that variety which she was good enough to praise. One day somebody said that he had been invited to a dinner dressed by Carême. Her highness immediately answered, ' There must be a mistake, for I am sure that Carême dresses no dinner out of my house.' Madame understood my character. The guest replied, 'Well, this cook of which I spoke is a pearl, at all events.' 'Say rather,' rejoined the princess, 'a false pearl, while mine is a real one.' And there I was, as large as life!
"The princess was often ill. One day at dinner, and before me, the Prince de Talleyrand felicitated her on improved health. ' Yes, I am better, and I owe that to Carême.' The prince, with his usual intellectual grace and kindliness, approved of the princess's remark. At that moment I was very happy.
"During my journey into Russia, Lord Stewart wrote to me at Petersburg, to engage me to go with him to Vienna, ' as he could find no cook who reminded him of me.' These were his very words. The Princess Bragation being some time afterwards almost perpetually confined to her bed, my place became nearly a sinecure, and I obtained from my kind patroness the permission to return to Vienna. When I arrived in the latter capital the ambassador was no longer there, but I rejoined him at Laybach.
"On my return to Vienna, I undertook the editing of the bill of fare (la rédaction du menu), which was not changed. I each day received in our magnificent kitchen the visit of mi-lord; he daily bestowed on me presents and encouragements. It was his excellency who received the letter of the Prince Wolkonski, in which it was said that the emperor would accept the dedication of my projects of culinary achitecture. A magnificent ring, studded with valuable diamonds, accompanied this letter. I received it with tears in my eyes. How happy had my life become!
"My ring was the subject of universal curiosity among my brethren. It was envied me by those who passed their lives in dissipation. See how delicate the emperor was. He would not reward me in an art in which I had pleased him, but he rewarded me in another art, to which I had consecrated all the leisure moments of my life. How often in that moment did I mentally thank M. Percier, that finely accomplished draughtsman, for the priceless instruction which he was good enough to give me.
"A short while after, we left Vienna, to be present at the coronation of George IV. Ten years before I had served this monarch, then I left him to go to Russia. I left him notwithstanding his generosity, notwithstanding the illustration which his regrets, so benignantly expressed, had thrown around my name. We did not arrive in time for the coronation. I regretted this at first; but, when I knew with what manner of men I should be associated, I looked on my absence as a real blessing. According to all account, nothing could be more triste, more paltry, more out of joint with the occasion, than these fetes. My ancient colleague of Carlton House had completely failed.
"Towards the end of 1823 there was a talk of Prince Esterhazy as ambassador at Paris. The Duke de Perigord recalled me to the memory of his excellency Prince Esterhazy, who received me with kindness, and remembered with a lively pleasure the dinners of the Prince Regent. He engaged me in the event of his being nominated to the Parisian embassy, and retained me long enough that day to talk of the gastronomy, of which he spoke in a truly pertinent manner, and with much talent. The prince set out for London. I remained at Paris sixteen months in the expectation of the new place, and meanwhile refused fine offers; one of the Russian ambassador's at Naples, the other of Lord Granville, who was leaving the Hague. I made it a point to be scrupulously faithful to the engagement which I had entered into with the prince.
"I forgot to say that, at the end of six months, Rothschild's place was offered me. At first I refused, but, Prince Ester- hazy not coming to Paris, one of my kind protectors, the Prince Louis de Rohan, presented me to Madame Rothschild. I accepted the place. The Duke de Perigord wished at this time that I should present my " Culinary Architecture," magnificently bound by Thouvenin, to the Tuileries. The result was as I had foreseen—I only received cold compliments. The reward of the public was somewhat different. My " Projets d'Architecture," though containing only rough sketches, were examined and approved. At the moment I write, 1833, here are nearly five years that I am with the Rothschilds. I have since refused the service of the Spanish embassy and of Prince Esterhazy, who came to Paris with the kindly thought of taking me back to England. M. Esterhazy was the intimate friend of George IV.; he dined weekly with his majesty. It was difficult for these two eminent gourmets, for these two personages, full of taste, to pass some hours together without talking of cookery. One day his Majesty asked the Prince where I was. 'At Rothschild's,' said Esterhazy, 'and in that house is the very best table in Paris.' 'I believe it,' said George IV., 'since Carême has the management of it.' These words were repeated to me by a person of eminent rank who was present. George IV. was so perfect a connoisseur in all that related to the table, that I had a right to feel flattered by his approval. These words of kindliness were in conformity with everything which the Regent had the goodness to say to me ten years before— to every communication he caused to be made to me in the interval. Magnificent conditions were now proposed to me on the part of George IV.; my salary was to be doubled, and that salary was to be converted into a pension for life at the end of a few years. But, in the interval between the fashionable seasons, London and the country-houses of the three kingdoms were insupportable to me. Notwithstanding the kindness and friendship of this royal prince, I experienced while in his service so profound a melancholy and ennui, that I was forced to return to Paris to resume the composition of my works. It is not, therefore, to be wondered that I refused with regret, though with gratitude, offers of recall to the service of George IV. In the first place, my situation at Rothschild's suited me perfectly; and, in the second place, I was somewhat wearied with service. I felt the first attack of the malady which gnaws at my vitals. I now only think of profiting of the days which Heaven may yet spare to me to finish the books whose germs are in my mind. These books have been the meditation of my entire life. What torments, what preoccupations, what cares, do they not represent, and how I have tormented body and mind by my long vigils. At break of day I was at the fish-market, seeking the elements of my labours. Some hours after, I was in the thick of business, with cap and apron on; and I was again at work, busy as a bee, some hours before dinner. It was in the night, after a short sleep, that I lately dictated to my daughter my most recent chapters. The certainty now remains to me of leaving something useful behind me. But I shall not leave all that I had conceived touching our art, in the interest of kindly civil men and good practicians.
"I now edited my 'Maitre-d'Hôtel;' I published a new edition of the 'Pâtissier Royale,' and the third of the 'Pâtissier Pittoresque;' the copyright I kept in my own hands.
"My works, forming already six volumes, had created for me at last (exclusive of places whose emoluments I always sacrificed to my studies !) the annual income necessary to a tranquil and comfortable existence. I made that year an income of more than 20,000 francs(800£). M. de Rothschild, valuing my services, raised, of his own accord, my wages. He had just about this time purchased of the Duke of Otranto the handsome estate of Ferrieres. The baron was good enough to say that the resources of Ferrieres would render my service more . easy; he added, with kindness, 'This beautiful chateau will, a dozen years hence, offer you a retreat.' I eagerly thanked him, but said that I did not think my health would permit me to accept his offers, that I was worn out. 'My wish,' said I, 'M. le Baron, is not to finish my days in a chateau, but in an humble lodging in Paris.' I further mentioned that my books brought me in an income which exceeded my wants. I shall increase this income, for I have not finished my labours; I have yet to publish a book on the actual state of my profession.' 'But what is the amount of that income ?' kindly asked M. de Rothschild and his family. A lively surprise was the result of my answer. What I said appeared a dream. I added that this income was not of the past year only, but dated back for several years.
"It was some months after this that I was attacked with the malady which torments me, and which will close, perhaps, the future on me. I am still under the hands of the doctors, but do not mend. One of my old friends, M. Magonty, replaces me in my post.
"I will not close this chapter without saying that I obtained, while in the house of Madame Rothschild, the inestimable good-will of a man of genius, of the Maestro Rossini; he is a connoisseur, as is well known; he always said that he only dined well, according to his taste, at the house of Madame Rothschild. He asked me one day if my labours were not the result of very attentive meditation? I answered affirmatively, 'All that I do is written; I slightly alter in execution.'I remember that one day there was some talk of Rossini going to the United States; he was good enough to say, 'I'll start at once if Carême will but accompany me.'"
I shall conclude with a few detached passages, aphorisms, and thoughts, from the same great authority.
Fête given at the Elysée Impérial for the Marriage of Prince Jerome and the Princess of Wurtemburg.
"At this, a grand ball, Robert was comptroller, and the famous Laguipierre chef des cuisines. Ruquette* and I were charged with such portion of the supper as was served cold. We thus, as nearly as I can remember, filled the tables : twenty- four large joints, fourteen stands bearing hams, six galantines, and two wild boars' heads, six loins of veal a la gelee, seventy- six entrees, six of which were sides and fillets of beef a la gelee, six noix de veau, six of dressed calves' brains bordered with shapes of jelly, six of pain defoie gras, six of poulets a la reine en galantine, six (faspics garnished with cocks' combs and kidneys, six of salmis of red partridge lukewarm, six of fricasces of poulet a la reine, six of mayonnaises de volaille, six of slices of salmon au beurre de Montpelier, six of salads of fillets of soles, six of galantines of eels au beurre de Montpelier. Our borders were thus composed: for the slices of salmon, beurre rose; for the eels, beurre a la ramgotte vert-tendre; for the salads of filets de sole, borders of eggs; for the mayonnaises de volaille, the same; for the game and fowls, borders of truffles, mushrooms, and morels."
*Riquette was then a young Parisian cook, who has since made a considerable fortune in the service of the Emperor Alexander. He spoke and wrote so remarkably, that his competitors called him the beau parleur.
"towards 1804 I imagined our new suedoises. The shapes which they had before my time were without grace or elegance. My attempt had a decided success at a grand extra of a ball, which the marshals of France gave to the Chief-Consul, their master. The bull was magnificent; it was given in the Salle de 1'Opera decorated with hangings. M. Becar, cook of the sugared entremets, called me in to assist him, he confided to me the suedoises. I made him thirty-six of them, and for several days afterwards these suedoises were the only topic of conversation from the kitchens to the salons of Paris. Happy times! agreeable labours!"
"France is the mother-country of amphitryons. Its kitchen and its wines assure the triumph of gastronomy. It is the only country in the world for good cheer. Strangers are convinced of these truths.
"The culinary art serves as a sort of escort to European diplomacy.
"The great diplomatist should have a renowned cook.
"The diplomatist is a fine appreciator of a good dinner.
"For the young nobility, embassies are courses of diplomacy and gastronomy.
"Gastronomy marches like a queen at the head of civilization, but vegetates merely in a period of revolution.
"Great doctors and great musiciiins are great lovers of good living ; witness the celebrated Broussais, Roques, Hossini, and Boi'eldieu.
"The rich man, fond of the pleasures of the table, passes through life with comfort and happiness, when he cares not a straw for public affairs.
"Cookery is a difficult art; a generous host knows how to appreciate its grandeur and dignity.
"In the houses of the old nobility, the chef de cuisim became maitre d'hôtel, the assistant-cook took the place of the cook, and the scullions became assistant-cooks. By these mutations, these ministers to the mouth (hommes de bouche) attached themselves more and more to these noble houses, and thus the masters at once preserved their health and secured the comfort of their servants.
"In the epoch in which we live the first culinary talents vegetate at Paris, and London is enriched with our renowned cooks.
"A cook is a gastronome both by taste and by profession.
"A cook who is clean in his person is clean also in his work.
"In ancient and modern times, the talents of cooks were honoured by kings, witness Marc Antoninus and the great Frederick.
"The French cook is esteemed by the great in distant lands; he is sought for and appreciated.
"The French cook is incited to his work by a point of honour inseparable from the culinary art; witness the death of the great Vatel.
"The French cook is happy in all the capitals of Europe, but he who does not wish to quit his country should have courage.
"At the Russian court the cook on duty (for there are four who take the work by turns every fortnight) always served his dinner en maitre tlhotel. This thoroughly gastronomical fashion should be generally adopted by amphitryons who love to make good cheer.
"The hypocritical valet is fatal to the tranquillity of a great establishment; he is vain, proud, paltry, crawling, lazy, and gluttonous; he is a tale-bearer for the purpose of gaining his master's confidence, which he afterwards abuses; he is the Tar- tufTe of domestic life.
"The upstart valet is self-sufficient and scented.
"The doctor speaks ill of the cook, in order that he may not lose his influence over the mind of the rich man ; but the talent of a good cook tends more to the preservation of his master's health than the factitious science of certain doctor?, whose medical advice is regulated by their own interests.
"The rich man who leads an irregular life ought rather to trust to the science of a cook to re-establish his health, if he feels the necessity of it, than to the discourses of the interested doctor."
Such was Anthony Carême. He had gained the suffrages of emperors and kings, of princes royal and princes not royal, of noble ladies and rich banker Jews, when the climax of his felicity was capped by the friendship and good-will of Rossini, and a flattering notice of his work, in his usual sparkling style, from the facile pen of Jules Janin. This was too much for mortal man, and encumbered by the very splendour and vanity of his successes, and not a little worn out also, by thirty years of service, he sank into premature decay, and was taken from that world of bon-vivants and sensualists of whom he had formed the delight, somewhere about the year of grace 1835 or 1836. "He was," says a celebrated gourmand, "lively, ardent, enthusiastic, of a rare patience, of an imperturbable sangfroid. The last work of Carême," L'Art de Cuisine Française au XlXème Siecle," was left in an unfinished state, but M. Plumeret, first cook of the Russian embassy, has finished it by the publication of the sixteenth and seventeenth parts. In the "Maitre d'Hôtel Français," the "Cuisinier Parisien," and "La Cuisine de Paris au XlXeme Siecle," will Carême live.
"Carême bestowed fine names on his soups: — Potages Condc, Boieldieu, Broussais, Roques, Segcdas (the three last learned and agreeable doctors) ; Lamartine, Dumesnil (the historian); Buffon, Girodet; and to be just to all the world, that great practitioner in the culinary art which the world has lost, had not forgotten, before his death, to give also to one of his best soups the name of Victor Hugo. He called a matelote of fish after M. Delavigne, and a dish of perch after his physician, M. Gaubert."
Here are M. Carême's ideas on maigre sauces:— "It is in a lenten kitchen that the cleverness of a cook can shed a brilliant light. It was in the Elysee Imperial, and by the example of the famous Laguipierre and Robert, that I was initiated into this fine branch of the art, and it is inexpressible. The years '93 and '94, in their terrible and devastating course, respected these strong heads (ces fortes tete.i). When our valiant First Consul appeared at the head of affairs our miseries and those of gastronomy finished.
"When the empire came, one heard of soups and entrées maigre. The splendid maigre first appeared at the table of the Princess Caroline Murat. This was the sanctuary of good cheer, and Murat was one of the first to do penitence. But what a penitence! "
One does not know whether to be indignant or to laugh at this. The old proverb, "Set a beggar on horseback and he will ride to the devil," is undoubtedly true. A few years before the consulate the ambitious Caroline Buonaparte, afterwards wife of Murat, was, with her mother and the other female members of her family, in so destitute a situation at Marseilles, that they had not the means of buying wood to warm themselves ; and as to Murat, her husband, it is well known that he rose from the very dregs of society, his father being a village innkeeper at Bastide Frontoniere, in the department of Lot.