Shakes the curtain with her good advice.
His logic “cut up” her assertions, and thereon he addressed himself to sleep; but he no sooner awoke in the morning than her hand was upon his mouth, to prevent his speaking while she reiterated her follies of the previous night. Poor Cambes! he cut his throat in order to escape from a too loquacious consort, of whom he is accused of being the murderer by the libelling Xanthus.
I may add to the record of these exemplary persons, the name of Dionysius of Heraclea, who, through good living, fell into such a condition of obesity and somnolency that he could only be made conscious by running fine gold needles into his flesh. What a droll thing it must have been for his morning visitors who found the huge mass fast asleep at table! Shaking hands with him, or any other equivalent ceremony, would have been useless. They accordingly took a gold needle from his girdle and tenderly run it into his fat. When it reached a vital point, the uneasy monarch snorted and opened one eye; and this being taken as an acknowledgment of their presence, he straightway went to sleep again. Ptolemy, the seventh king of Egypt, was in nearly as deplorable a condition, and Magas of Cyrene was perhaps even worse. The Ephori, it will be remembered, had a horror of the Lacedæmonians getting fat, and to prevent this undesirable consummation, the youth were obliged to present themselves undraped to the magistrates. Woe to the offenders with prominent stomachs, for they had them punched till the owners hardly knew whether they stood on their head or their heels, and could not digest a dinner for a month afterwards.
They were beaten almost as badly as the unlucky official who went, in Parthia, by the name of the king’s friend. It was the duty of this minister to seat himself on the ground at the foot of the lofty couch on which the king lay, and from which the sovereign flung refuse bits to his “friend.” If the latter ate too voraciously, his meat was snatched from him, and he was beaten with rods till he had hardly strength left to thank his majesty for the entertainment. Of course, if he ate too slowly, he was subject to similar castigation. The moral, perhaps, is, that “fast” or “slow,” it is safer not to be “friends” with the king—of the Parthians.
But let us turn from the ancient records of how the monarchs of old deported themselves at their solemn boards, and contemplate a few brief table traits in connexion with the sovereigns of more modern times.
Clovis was a Christian king, but his behaviour at dinner was not always so exemplary as might have been desired. But the Chesterfields of his time were not exacting, and they probably thought Clovis a gentleman when, on Bishop (St. Gerome) taking leave of him after dinner, the monarch pulled out a hair and placed it in the bishop’s palm; the civil ceremony was imitated by the courtiers, and the prelate left the rude palace with more hairs on his hand than he had on his head.
But dismissing the idea of running regularly through the “Tables of the Sovereigns of Europe,” and elsewhere, I will simply relate such incidents as are exemplary of royal table life, without pausing to be very nice with regard to chronological order. Thus it occurs to me that Russia, in modern times, exhibits as much barbarism as the court of Clovis, where Christianity and civilization were, as yet, hardly known.
When Peter the Great and his consort dined together, they were waited on by a page and the empress’s favourite chambermaid. Even at larger dinners, he bore uneasily the presence and service of what he called listening lacqueys. His taste was not an imperial one. He loved, and most frequently ordered, for his own especial enjoyment, a soup with four cabbages in it; gruel; pig, with sour cream for sauce; cold roast meat, with pickled cucumbers or salad; lemons and lampreys; salt meat, ham, and Limburgh cheese. Previously to addressing himself to the “consummation” of this supply, he took a glass of aniseed water. At his repast he quaffed quass, a sort of beer, which would have disgusted an Egyptian; and he finished with Hungarian or French wine. All this was the repast of a man who seemed, like the nation of which he was the head, in a transition state, between barbarism and civilization; beginning dinner with cabbage water, and closing the banquet with goblets of Burgundy.
Peter and his consort had stranger tastes than these. This illustrious pair once arrived at Stuthof, in Germany, where they claimed not only the hospitality of the table, but a refuge for the night. The owner of the country-house at which they sought to be guests was a Herr Schoppenhauer, who readily agreed to give up to them a small bed-room, the selection of which had been made by the emperor himself. It was a room without stove or fire-place, had a brick floor, the walls were bare; and the season being that of rigorous winter, a difficulty arose as to warming this chamber. The host soon solved the difficulty. Several casks of brandy were emptied on the floor, the furniture being first removed, and the spirit was then set fire to. The czar screamed with delight as he saw the sea of flames, and smelt the odour of the Cognac. The fire was no sooner extinguished than the bed was replaced, and Peter and Catherine straightway betook themselves to their repose, and not only slept profoundly all night in this gloomy bower, amid the fumes and steam of burnt brandy, but rose in the morning thoroughly refreshed and delighted with their couch, and the delicate vapours which had curtained their repose.
The emperor was pleased, because when an emergency had presented itself, provision to meet it was there at hand. Napoleon loved to be so served at his tables when in the field. He was irregular in the hours of his repasts, and he ate rapidly and not over delicately. The absolute will which he applied to most things, was exercised also in matters appertaining to the appetite. As soon as a sensation of hunger was experienced, it must be appeased; and his table service was so arranged that, in any place and at any hour, he had but to give expression to his will, and the slaves of his word promptly set before him roast fowls, cutlets, and smoking coffee. He dined off mutton before risking the battle at Leipsic; and it is said that he lost the day because he was suffering so severely from indigestion, that he was unable to arrange, with sufficient coolness, the mental calculations which he was accustomed to make as helps to victory.