As Napoleon, the genius of war, was served in the field, Louis XV., the incarnation of selfishness and vice, was served in his mistress’s bower. That bower, built at Choisy for Pompadour, cost millions; but it was one of the wonders of the world. For the royal entertainments, there were invented those little tables, called “servants” or “waiters;” they were mechanical contrivances, that immortalized the artist Loriot. At Choisy, every guest had one of these tables to himself. No servant stood by to listen, rather than lend aid. Whatever the guest desired to have, he had but to write his wish on paper, and touch a spring, when the table sunk through the flooring at his feet, and speedily re-appeared, laden with fruits, with pastry, or with wine, according to the order given. Nothing had been seen like this enchantment in France before; and nothing like it, it is hoped, will ever be seen there or elsewhere again. The guests thought themselves little gods, and were not a jot more reasonable than Augustus and his companions, who sat down to dinner attired as deities. When kings ape the majesty of gods, it is time for the people to shake the majesty of kings.
Perhaps Louis XV. never looked so little like a king as when he dined or supped in public,—a peculiar manifestation of his kingly character. The Parisians and their wives used to hurry down to Versailles on a Sunday, to behold the feeding of the beast which it cost them so much to keep. On these occasions he always had boiled eggs before him. He was uncommonly dexterous in decapitating the shell by a single blow from his fork; and this feat he performed weekly at his own table, for the sake of the admiration which it excited in the Cockney beholders. But an egg broken by the king, or Damiens broken alive upon the wheel, and torn asunder by wild horses,—each was a sight gazed upon, even by the youthful fair, with a sort of admiration for the executioner!
The glory of the epicureanism of Louis XV. was his “magic table,” and the select worthless people especially invited to dine with him thereat. In 1780 the Countess of Oberkirch saw this table, even then a relic and wreck of the past. She and a gay party of great people, who yet hoped that God had created the world only for the comfort of those whom He had honoured by allowing them to be born “noble,” paid a visit “to the apartments of the late king” in the Tuileries. There, among other things, she saw the celebrated magic table, the springs of which, she says, “had become rusty from disuse.” The good lady, who had not the slightest intention in the world to be satirical, thus describes the wondrous article, at the making of which Pompadour had presided:—“It was placed in the centre of a room, where none were allowed to enter but the invited guests of Louis XV. It would accommodate thirty persons. In the centre was a cylinder of gilt copper, which could be pressed down by springs, and would return with its top, which was surrounded by a band, covered with dishes. Around were placed four dumb waiters, on which would be found everything that was necessary.” In 1789 the Countess says,—“This table no longer exists, having been long since destroyed, with everything that could recall the last sad years of a monarch, who would have been good if he had not been perverted by evil counsels.”
After all, the gastronomic greatness of Louis XV. was small compared with that of his predecessor, Louis XIV. The “state” of the latter was, in all things, more “cumbersome.” To be helpless was to be dignified; and to do nothing for himself, and to think of nothing but himself, was the sole life-business of this very illustrious king. A dozen men dressed him; there was one for every limb that had to be covered. Poor wretch! His breakfast was as lumbering a matter as his toilette; and he tasted nothing till it had passed through the hands of half-a-dozen dukes. It took even three noblemen, ending with a prince of the blood, to present him a napkin with which to wipe his lips, before he addressed himself to the more serious business of the day.
Louis XIV. could not be properly got to the dinner-table, entertained there, and removed, without a still more fussy world of ceremony, and that of a very Chinese or Ko Tou character. The ushers solemnly summoned the guard when the cloth was to be laid, and a detachment of men under arms were at once spectators and guardians at the dressing of the table. They stood by, exceedingly edified, no doubt, while the appointed officers touched the royal napkin, spoon, plate, knife, fork, and tooth-picks, with a piece of bread, which they subsequently swallowed. This was the “trial” against poisoning. The dishes in the kitchen were tried in the same way, and were then carried to table escorted by a file of men with drawn swords. As the dishes were placed on the table, the loyal officials bowed as though some saintly relics were on the platter!
If there was ceremony at the coming in of the meat, how much more was there at the coming in of him who was about to eat it! Unhappy wretch! what splendid misery enveloped his mutton-chop! He was looked upon as very august, but decidedly helpless. Did he wish to wipe his fingers; three dukes and a prince only could present him with a damp napkin; but a dry one might be offered him at dinner, without insult, by a simple valet. Philosophical distinction! Changing his plate required as much attendant ceremony as would go to the whole crowning of a modern constitutional king; and when he asked for drink, there was thunder in heaven, or something like it. The cup-bearer solemnly shouted the king’s desire to the buffet; and the buffeteers presented goblets and flasks to the cup-bearer, who carried them to the thirsty but necessarily patient monarch; and, when he finally received the draught into his extended throat, all loyal men present seemed the better for the sight.
But Louis XIV. was so well-used to this, and much more ceremony than I have space to detail, that it interfered in nowise with the comfortable indulgence of his appetite. He was a very gifted eater. The rough old Duchess of Orleans declares in her Memoirs, that she “often saw him eat four platesful of different soups, a whole pheasant, a partridge, a platefull of salad, mutton hashed with garlick, two good-sized slices of ham, a dish of pastry, and afterwards fruit and sweetmeats!” At the end of such a repast as this, this “most Christian” king (very much so, indeed!) must have been in something of the condition of the young gentleman who went out to dine, and who, after taking enough for three boys of his size, and being invited to take more, answered that he thought he could, if they would allow him to stand!
The Duchess of Orleans, however, is by no means astonished at the Baal-like ability of the king. Of her own performances in that way she says, “I am not good at lying in bed; as soon as I awake, I must get up. I seldom breakfast, and then only on bread and butter. I take neither chocolate, nor coffee, nor tea, not being able to endure those foreign drugs. I am German in all my habits, and like nothing in eating or drinking which is not conformable to our old customs. I eat no soup but such as I can take with milk, wine, or beer. I cannot bear broth; whenever I eat anything of which it forms a part, I fall sick instantly, my body swells, and I am tormented with colics. When I take broth alone, I am compelled to vomit even to blood, and nothing can restore the tone of my stomach but—ham and sausages!” Poor lady! she reminds me of the converted cannibal Carib, who was once sick, and who being asked by a missionary what he could eat, answered sentimentally, that he thought he could pick a bone or two of a very delicate hand of a young child!
At a later period even than that of the Duchess of Orleans above mentioned, the German taste could hardly be said to have improved. For instances of this, I need only refer to the Memoirs of the Margravine of Bareuth. This lady was the daughter of that Frederic William of Prussia, whose portrait is graphically drawn also by his own son, and with additional light and shade by Voltaire. The Princess Frederica subsequently married the Prince of Bareuth—a mésalliance which did not displease her easy parents;—they were not as proudly vexed at it as Isaac and Rachel were at the marriage of their son Esau with the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, which certainly sounds as if Esau’s father-in-law had been a pugilistic publican;—the Princess Frederica, I say, paints a portrait of her father in very broad style. He used to compel her and his other children to come to his room every morning at nine o’clock, whence they were never allowed to depart till nine in the evening, “pour quelque raison que ce fût.” The time was spent by the affectionate sovereign in swearing at them, and he added injury to insult by half-famishing them. He begrudged them even a wretched soup made of bare bones and salt. Occasionally, they were kept fasting the whole day; or, if he graciously allowed them a meal at his own table, the royal beast would spit into the dishes from which he had helped himself, in order to prevent their touching them. At other times he forced them to swallow compositions of the most disgusting description—“ce qui nous obligeait quelquefois de rendre, en sa présence, tout ce que nous avions dans le corps!” He would then throw the plates at their heads; and, as his children rushed by him to escape his fury, the paternal brute, whom it is too much flattery to himself, and too much injustice to the brute creation so to name, would strike fiercely at them with his crutch, and was eminently disappointed when he failed to crack their little, hard, royal, but very dirty skulls. It is known that this madman would have slain his own son, “the rascal Fritz,” as he, “the great Frederic,” as the world afterwards was used to call him; and little doubt can exist that the great Frederic owed most of his great vices, and none of his great qualities, to the education which he received at the knees of his infamous sire.
The history of the German courts abounds in traits connected with the table, but I am compelled to go little beyond the announcement of such a fact. One or two more, however, I may be permitted to notice before finally leaving this section of my multifaced subject.