I have mentioned that our eccentric countrywoman had purchased the property of the Duke of Orleans; and that reminds me how fatal the table, and particularly the supper-table, has been to the dukes of that house. Thus Philippe, the brother of Louis XIV., quarrelled with the latter touching the marriage which the king wished to conclude between one of his own natural daughters and the duke’s son. Orleans, fevered and flushed, went to sup “with the ladies of St. Cloud.” He had not long before eaten heavily and drunk deeply at dinner; and at this second meal he was fatally stricken with apoplexy. The king said he was sorry, and having thus far given way to his grief, he sat down with Madame de Maintenon to rehearse the overture of an opera. This duke’s son and successor gave suppers, at which his infamous daughter, the Duchess de Berri, presided, and admission to which was purchased by the candidate making simple denial of his belief in a God! The fate of both had something retributive in it. The Duchess de Berri, who had privately married a profligate and ugly officer of her guards, named De Riou, sought to overcome her father’s wrathful refusal to acknowledge the union, by giving him a splendid supper al-fresco on the terrace of Meudon, on the 13th May, 1709. The evening proved cold and damp, and the duchess caught there a fever brought on by a chill, over-feeding, and deep drinking, of which she died. Fourteen years afterwards, the sire who, at sixteen, had all the experience in vice of a man of sixty, was dining with the Duchess of Phalaria, his last mistress, when he was taken ill. The physician who was summoned enjoined abstinence immediate and complete. “Wait till to-morrow,” said the duke, “I will enjoy myself to-night.” And accordingly, the exemplary pair supped together, and the lady was in the act of telling the duke one of her lively stories. As she went on, the glass slid from his hand, and his head sank upon her shoulder. She thought he was asleep, and went on with her story; but he to whom she was telling it was stone-dead. The son of the regent duke was in every respect unlike his father. He ate his last supper with the Jansenist fathers of the Geneviève,—symbol of his general habits and the society he kept. His son was the father of Egalité, and at the time of his death (1785) was popular with the lower classes at Paris for the nightly suppers which he distributed to them, and which consisted of bread and wine, with medicine for those who needed it. It was a distribution made not charitably, but politically. Of the last meal of Egalité, before he went to execution, I only know that it was a breakfast, and not a supper, and that he both ate and drank heartily. Misfortune quite as little disturbed the appetite of the Louis Philippe of our own days. During his flight from Paris he never forgot the hour of supper or dinner; and when “William Smith” landed at Newhaven, the first thing he asked for was—something to eat. I notice these table traits, simply because the Orleanist historians always speak contemptuously of Louis XVI. eating, with appetite, in open court during his trial. The stomach of Orleans was ever as ready as that of Bourbon.
The supper has been called the conversational meal, but to make it so in perfection it requires a thorough professor of the science of conversation—one who knows that its very spirit consists less in being a good talker himself than in flinging about suggestive matter to induce others to converse upon. The host who understands the science will so do this that his guests will be satisfied with themselves. Some French writer has said, in reference to this after-supper gossip, that it should be like a game at cards, at which each player does his best,—but I do not endorse this sentiment to its fullest extent, although I allow that there is something in it. The wise generally, and dyspeptics especially, will do well to avoid political subjects after supper; and perhaps there is no more comprehensive remark to be made on this matter than one advanced by a follower of La Bruyère, a minor moralist, who has said that “la confiance fournit plus à la conversation que l’esprit ou l’érudition.”
I recollect once seeing the dullest of evenings made suddenly bright by an apt query modestly put by one who needed not to inquire, but who quietly asked if anyone present could name the author of the line:—
“Fine by degrees, and beautifully less.”
Many a wide guess was fired off prior to the successful naming. The general opinion was in favour of Pope, and Pope has indeed written a line very like it:—
“Fine by defect, and delicately weak.”
The falling upon such coincidences are the very explosives of after-supper discussions: thus, the very familiar line—
“Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm,”
may be the text for a pretty dispute. It occurs in Addison’s “Campaign,” and also in Pope’s “Dunciad.” The latter poet too has said—
“Ye little stars, hide your diminish’d rays;”