Thus, while Louis himself is not entitled to distinction as an epicure, and his personal example failed to furnish inspiration for his cooks, his table was always maintained on a scale befitting his station. There were, besides, dainty entremets to be supplied to La Vallière, Montespan, Fontanges, and Maintenon, and new surprises must perforce be placed before his numerous guests of distinction. Among such dishes was the famous cod, or morue à la crême, which immortalised the Marquis de Béchamel. Like Lucullus and Apicius, moreover, Condé and Fouquet, with their princely revenues and luxurious tastes, appeared to stimulate the art and further the pleasures of the table.
Madame de Montespan, with her temper, naturally proved a good cook, and did not disdain an occasional séance with the stew-pans. She is credited with having invented a sauce and encouraging every art that ministered to the service of the table, even to expending a sum of nine thousand livres for a wine-cooler. Fouquet's table, over which Vatel presided, and subsequently that of Condé under the same artist, to say nothing of the splendidly equipped establishment of Fouquet's successor Colbert, were scarcely less renowned than the kitchens of Versailles. The grand fête in honour of the king given by Fouquet, Marquis of Belle-Isle, at Vaux, will be remembered, as also the jealousy of his Majesty at the lavish hospitality of his superintendent of finance.
Equally sumptuous were the entertainments of the Prince de Condé, in whose cuisine during certain seasons there were regularly consumed as many as a hundred and fifty pheasants a week.
Meanwhile, Molière and Boileau had sung the praises of gastronomy, but not to that degree which was to charm France during the consulate and the empire, when its harp had been touched by the facile fingers of Berchoux.
Numerous cook-books had already appeared and exerted their influence since the "Viandier" first pointed out the way. He who would give a dinner à la Louis XIV should consult "Les Délices de la Campagne," a volume published in 1654, of which many editions were afterwards issued, the author being Nicolas de Bonnefons, valet de chambre of the king. From this treatise one may form an idea of the variety and profusion of the dishes then in vogue, and to what perfection and luxury the science had attained.[9] In the previous year appeared the celebrated "Pastissier François," the Amsterdam edition of which is among the most famous of the Elzevirs—a copy originally priced at a few sous having been sold for ten thousand francs, which would seem a rather exorbitant price to pay for instructions in seventeenth-century pastry-making and preparing eggs for fat and lean days.
The tragic death of Vatel by his own hand, owing to the non-arrival of the sea-fish at Chantilly, is too well known to need narrating. Vatel, the victim of his art, was also an author, having contributed an illustrated treatise on carving entitled "l'Escuyer Tranchant," an accomplishment which he states could scarcely be acquired without the ministration and the precepts of the master—sans la voye et les preceptes du maistre. A paragraph will serve to show the nature and scope of his contribution to culinary literature:
"A carver should be well bred, inasmuch as he should maintain a first rank among the servants of his master. Pleasing, civil, amiable, and well disposed, he should present himself at table with his sword at his side, his mantle on his shoulder, and his napkin on his left arm, though some are in the habit of placing it on the guard of their sword in an unobjectionable manner. He should make his obeisance when approaching the table, proceed to carve the viands, and divide them understandingly according to the number of the guests. Ordinarily he should station himself by the side of his master, carving with knives suitable to the size of the meats. A carver should be very scrupulous in his deportment, his carriage should be grave and dignified, his appearance cheerful, his eye serene, his head erect and well combed, abstaining as much as possible from sneezing, yawning, or twisting his mouth, speaking very little and directly, without being too near or too far from the table."
Assuredly, one who observed such nicety in his carving must have been extremely painstaking in compounding his liaisons. Indeed, the conscientiousness manifest throughout the pages of his manual easily enables one to foresee how his chagrin at the absence of the roast at two of the tables and his not having received the fish at the fête of Condé so preyed upon his mind as to lead him, during a moment of despair, to fall upon his own sword.[10] With his sense of the proprieties so highly keyed, one can also fancy how he must have been shocked on hearing of the prince's awkwardness at a tavern where Condé, after proclaiming his ability as a cook before a number of companions, ignominiously overturned an omelette into the fire, and was compelled to return the spider to the more skilful hands of the hostess. A similar gaucherie is related of Napoleon I when, one day at the Tuileries, insisting on taking the place of the Empress Marie-Louise, who was making an omelette herself in her own apartments, he awkwardly flipped it on the floor, and was obliged to confess his inaptitude and allow the empress to proceed with her cooking.