On this being found worthy of the juices and the flesh, the gardener presented the last morsel.
"Now," said he, "taste all!"
Then, with eyes humid with emotion and a radiant smile upon his lips, M. Radel advanced towards his visitor, and, seizing his hands with the same fervour that he would have manifested in the ease of a great artist, he exclaimed:
"Ah, my friend, the peach is perfection itself! You are to be profoundly complimented, and after to-morrow your peaches will be served at the royal table."
And, carefully removing its three companions from the plate, the gardener was ushered out and the peaches placed by the side of the Gothic manuscript.
During the last years of the reign of Louis XVIII, it was with regret that he perceived signs of the decadence of cookery. "Gastronomy is passing," were his words to Dr. Corvisart, "and with it the last remains of the old civilisation. It belongs to organised bodies, such as physicians, to direct all their energies towards preventing the disruption of society. Formerly France was filled with gastronomers because it numbered so many corporations, the members of which have been annihilated or dispersed. There are now no more farmer-generals, no more abbés, no more monks: the life of gastronomy resides in physicians like you, who are epicures by predestination. It is for you to hear with still greater firmness the weight with which you are laden by destiny. May you wipe out the fate of the Spartans at the pass of Thermopylae!"
But the cry of the decadence of cookery is an ancient one, and occurs periodically, like that of the failure of vintages. It has always existed, and always will exist. It is the old burden, with Ronsard's modification:
"Le temps s'en va, le temps s'en va, ma dame;
Las! le temps non, mais nous nous en-allons."
(Time hast'neth on, time hast'neth on, my dear;