Flower o' the lily: A romance of old Cambray

by Baroness Emmuska Orczy Orczy

The company sat down amidst much laughter and facetious conversation, and, we take it, every intention of enjoying their host's good cheer. And, of a truth, it was a brilliant assembly, a veritable kaleidoscope of colours, an almost dazzling sparkle of jewels. The dark doublets worn by the men acted as foils to the vivid satins worn by the ladies. The host and his principal guests had high-backed chairs to sit on, but every one else sat on low stools, set very far apart so as to give plenty of room for the display of the ladies' dresses and their monstrous farthingales. Indeed, the men almost disappeared between the billows of satin-covered hoops and the huge lace collars, the points of which would tickle their nose or scratch their ear or even get into their eye.

While the serving-men and wenches went the round of the tables with serviettes over their shoulders and silver ewers and basins in their hands, offering to the guests tepid water perfumed with orange flower, with myrtle, lavender and rosemary, for washing their hands, Gilles de Crohin was watching Jacqueline de Broyart. From where he sat, he could see her dainty head above a forest of silver dish-covers. She had not removed her mask; none of the ladies would do that till, mayhap, after the banquet was over, when conviviality and good cheer would breed closer intimacy. To Gilles' senses, rendered supersensitive by his strangely adventurous position, it seemed as if that piece of black satin, through which he could only perceive from time to time the flash of glowing eyes, rendered Jacqueline's personality both mysterious and desirable. He was conscious of an acute tingling of all his nerves; his own mask felt as if it were weighted with lead; the fumes of rich soups and sauces, mingled with those of wine and heady Flemish ale, appeared to be addling his brain. He felt as if he were in a dream—a dream such as he had never experienced before save once, when, sick, footsore and grievously wounded, he had gone on a brief excursion to Paradise.

Gilles did not know, could not explain it satisfactorily to himself, why the remembrance of a far-off, half-forgotten dream-voice came, with sweet persistency, between him and reality, a voice tender and compassionate, even whilst a pair of eyes, blue as the firmament on an April morning, seemed to be gazing on him through the slits in the mask.

II

It would have been difficult for any stranger who happened to have landed in Cambray, unacquainted with the political circumstances of its province, to have realized, at sight of Monsieur le gouverneur's table, that the Spanish armies were even then ravaging the Cambrésis, and that provisions in the city were becoming scarce owing to the difficulties which market-gardeners and farmers had of bringing in their produce. Gilles, who had been in the service of a Royal prince of France and who had oft risen from the latter's table with his stomach only half filled, was left to marvel at the prodigality and the sumptuousness of the repast. Indeed, one of the most interesting documents preserved until recently in the archives of the city of Cambray, is the account of this banquet which M. le Baron d'Inchy, governor of the Cambrésis, gave ostensibly in honour of the notabilities of the province, but which, I doubt not, was really in honour of Monsieur Duc d'Anjou et d'Alençon, brother of the King of France, who we know was present on the occasion, under a well-preserved incognito.

And the menu! Ye gods who preside over the arts of gastronomy, what a menu! Eighty-two persons sat down to it, and of a truth their appetite and their digestion must have been of the staunchest, else they could never have grappled successfully with half the contents of the dishes which were set before them. Three separate services, an' it please you! and each service consisting of at least forty different dishes all placed upon the three tables at once, with the covers on; then, at a given signal, the covers removed, and the guests ready to help themselves as they felt inclined, using their knives for the purpose, or else those curiously shaped pronged tools which Monseigneur d'Inchy had lately imported out of England, so the town gossips said.

Ye gods, the menu! For the first service there were no fewer than eight centre dishes, on each an oille—that most esteemed feat of gastronomic art, in which several succulent meats, ducks, partridges, pigeons, quails, capons, all had their part and swam in a rich sauce flavoured with sundry aromatic substances, pepper and muscat, thyme, ginger, basil and many sweet herbs. Oh, the oille, properly cooked, was in itself a feast! But, grouped around these noble dishes were tureens of partridges, stewed with cabbage; tureens of fillets of duckling; several pigeon pies and capons in galantine; fillets of beef with cucumbers and fricandeaus of lard; and such like insignificant side dishes as quails in casserole and chickens baked under hot cinders—excellent I believe!

After the platters and dishes had become empty, the first service was removed, clean cloths spread upon the tables—for by this time the first ones had become well spattered with grease—and perfumed water once more handed round for the washing of hands. Knives were washed too, as well as the forks—the few of them that were used. Then came the second service. Breasts of veal this time, larded and braised, formed the centre dishes and the minor adjuncts were fowls garnished with spring chickens and hard-boiled eggs, capons, leverets, and pheasants garnished with quails: there were sixteen different kinds of salads and an equal number of different sauces.

Again the service was removed and clean cloths laid for the third service. A kind of dessert—little things to pick at, for those who had not been satisfied. Such little things as boars' heads—twelve of them—which must have looked magnificent towering along the centre of the table; omelettes à la Noailles—the recipe of which, given in a cookery book which was printed in the beginning of the sixteenth century, does suggest something very succulent—dishes of baked custards, fritters of peaches, stewed truffles, artichokes and green peas, and even lobsters, sweetbreads and tongues!

Such abundance is almost unbelievable, and where all the delicacies came from I, for one, do not pretend to say. They were there, so much we know, and eighty-two ladies and gentlemen must have consumed them all. No wonder that, after the first few moments of formal ceremonies—of bowings and scrapings and polite speeches—tongues quickly became loosened and moods became hilarious; wine too and heady Flemish ales were copiously drunk—not a little of both was spilled over the fine linen cloths and the rich dresses of the ladies. But these little accidents were not much thought of these days; fastidiousness at meals had not yet come to be regarded as a sign of good breeding, and a high-born gentleman was not thought any the worse of for vulgar and riotous gorging.