“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 maître d’hôtel 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 maître d’hôtel, 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. We 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 maître d’hôtel, and was uniformly complimented. The princess said to me one day, ‘Carème, 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 Carème. Her highness immediately answered, ‘There must be a mistake, for I am sure that Carème 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 Carème.’ 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 milord; 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 architecture. 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 fêtes. My ancient colleague of Carlton House had completely failed.