Superficial observers could not account for this eating, without hunger, which seemed limitless. All true Frenchmen, however, rubbed their hands, and said, "they are under the charm; they have spent this evening more money than they took from the treasury in the morning."
This epoch was favorable to all those who contributed to the gratification of the taste. Very made his fortune, Achard laid the foundation of his, and Madame Sullot, the shop of whom, in the Palais Royal, was not twenty feet square, sold twelve thousand petits pates a day.
The effect yet lasts, for strangers crowd to Paris from all parts of Europe, to rest from the fatigues of war. Our public monuments, it may be, are not so attractive as the pleasures of gourmandise, everywhere elaborated in Paris, a city essentially gourmand.
A LADY GOURMAND.
Gourmandise is not unbecoming to women: it suits the delicacy of their organs and recompenses them for some pleasures they cannot enjoy, and for some evils to which they are doomed.
Nothing is more pleasant than to see a pretty woman, her napkin well placed under her arms, one of her hands on the table, while the other carries to her mouth, the choice piece so elegantly carved. Her eyes become brilliant, her lips glow, her conversation is agreeable and all her motions become graceful. With so many advantages she is irresistible, and even Cato, the censor, would feel himself moved.
ANECDOTE.
I will here record what to me is a bitter reflection.
I was one day most commodiously fixed at table, by the side of the pretty Madame M——d, and was inwardly rejoicing at having obtained such an advantageous position, when she said "your health." I immediately began a complimentary phrase, which however, I did not finish, for turning to her neighbor on the right, she said "Trinquons," they touched each others glasses. This quick transition seemed a perfidy, and the passage of many years have not made me forget it.