May be seen from the spot vainly trying to move.
Some affirm ’tis the bridegroom aroused from his trance,
Some declare ’tis the bride gliding forth to the dance.
But ’tis only the fiddler endeavouring to jerk
His bow arm o’er the once magic fiddle of Ferques.
THE SUPPORT OF SAINTS OF LATER DAYS.
It may be seen from our last chapter, that the bill of fare of those who dined in the desert was neither very long nor very varied. It was otherwise with the better fed, but perhaps not better-taught gentlemen of the church of later days. Thus, for instance, the Curé of Brequier kept a very different table from that of the lean Amphitryons of the desert. Brillat Savarin once called on the holy man just as he had dismissed the soup and beef from the table. These were replaced by a leg of mutton à la royale, a fat capon, and a splendid salad. The hour was scarcely noon, and the curé had sat down to this saint’s fare alone. He was not selfish, however, and he invited his guest to “break bread” with him, but the guest, a prince of “gastronomers” in his way, declined, and the curé, like Coriolanus, did it all alone! He finished the “gigot” to the ivory, the capon to the bones, and the salad to the polished bottom of the bowl. A colossal cheese was then placed before him, in which he made a breach of ninety degrees, and having washed down all with a bottle of wine, he, like the Irishman, thanked God “for that snack,” and betook himself to digestion and repose. “Le pauvre homme!”
The nuns were in no ways behind the priests. Madame d’Arestrel, lady Abbess of the nuns of the Visitation at Belley, (faustum nomen!) once told a secret to a visitor who feared she was going to expound a chapter from the Prophets. “If you want a foretaste of Paradise in the guise of good chocolate,” said she, “be sure to make it over-night, in an earthenware coffee-pot. Its standing still for a night concentrates it, and gives it a velvety taste, which is divine! And Heaven cannot be angry with us for this little luxury, for is not Heaven too divine?” How wide the distance between St. Paula, widow, and Madame d’Arestrel, of the convent of the Visitation! I may add, that if the Visitandines made good chocolate, the monks of the Feuillants, in Paris, were renowned for their ratafie. But they too have superior authority for good living. A dainty dish in Italy is commonly called a “mouthful for a cardinal.”—un boccone di cardinali.
The canons took the tone from the cardinals. When the French canon Rollet became ill through excessive drinking, his doctor interdicted all strong beverages, and was not a little wroth, on his next visit, at finding the dignitary in bed indeed, but at his bed-side a little table, neatly laid out with bottles and glasses. The canon met the threatened storm by gently remarking:—“Doctor, when you forbade me drinking wine, you did not wish to deprive me of the pleasure of looking at the bottle!” It was such canons who were the best customers of the nuns who distilled liqueurs, and of the Ursulines who manufactured the daintiest drops flavoured by the daintiest essences! But in the Archbishop of Paris himself, M. de Belley, the clergy of France had example to which they might appeal as authority for indulging in good cheer. The archiepiscopal face was wreathed in smiles at the sight of a good dinner. The prelate lived to be a veteran among gastronomers, and was, in other respects, not an unworthy archbishop.
But M. de Belley was at least a gentleman in his gastronomic propensities. He was not, like a Russo-Greek “Papa,” a brandy-bibber. The Russo-Greek priests sanctify drinking, in the minds of the people, by their evil example. Monsieur Léverson Le Duc, a French diplomatist in Russia, tells us that he knows of one parish in Muscovy where the people lock up their pastor every Saturday night, in order that he may not be too muzzy for mass on the Sunday. They occasionally find him very drunk, nevertheless, when they have forgotten previously to examine beneath his robe, under which the sinning sot sometimes smuggles his quart of Cognac! Sir George Simpson crossed the Pacific in a Russian vessel. The chaplain had been sent in her to sea, because he was always too drunk to officiate on land. He was kept sober expressly for the hour of service on Sundays, but at other times, he appears to have realized the verse in the old song of Dibdin’s, wherein it is said that