Under Louis XVI. there was a constant improvement in all the "occupations which are required in the preparation of food" by cooks, traiteurs, pastry cooks, and confectioners. The art of preserving food, so that one could have the fruits of summer in the midst of winter, really began then, although the art of canning may safely be said to belong to our own much later time.
In the year 1740 a dinner was served in this order: Soup, followed by the bouilli, an entrée of veal cooked in its own gravy, as a side dish. Second course: A turkey, a dish of vegetables, a salad, and sometimes a cream. Dessert: Cheese, fruit and sweets. Plates were changed only thrice: after the soup, at the second course, and at dessert. Coffee was rarely served, but cherry brandy or some liqueur was passed.
Louis XVIII., who grew to be an immensely fat man, was a remarkable gastronome. Let any one read Victor Hugo's "Les Misérables," and an account of his reign, to get an idea of this magnificent entertainer. His most famous maître d'hôtel was the Duc d'Escars. When he and his royal master were closeted together to meditate a dish, the ministers of state were kept waiting in the antechamber, and the next day an official announcement was made, "Monsieur le Duc d'Escars a travaillé dans le cabinet."
How strangely would it affect the American people if President Harrison kept them waiting for his signature because he was discussing terrapin and Madeira sauce with his chef.
The king had invented the truffles à la purée d'ortolans, and invariably prepared it himself, assisted by the duke. On one occasion they jointly composed a dish of more than ordinary dimensions, and duly consumed the whole of it. In the night the duke was seized with a fit of indigestion, and his case was declared hopeless. Loyal to the last, he ordered an attendant to awake and inform the king, who might be exposed to a similar attack. His majesty was roused accordingly, and told that D'Escars was dying of his invention.
"Dying!" exclaimed the king: "well, I always said I had the better stomach of the two."
So much for the gratitude of kings. The Parisian restaurants, those world-renowned Edens of the gastronomer, were formed and founded on the theories of these cookery-loving kings. But political disturbances were to intervene in the year 1770. After the glorious days of Louis XIV. and the wild dissipation of the Regency, after the long tranquillity under the ministry of Fleury, travellers arriving in Paris found its resources very poor as to good cheer. But that soon mended itself.
It was not until about 1814 that the parent of Parisian restaurants, Beauvilliers, made himself a cosmopolitan reputation by feeding the allied armies. He learned to speak English, and in that way became most popular. He had a prodigious memory, and would recognize and welcome men who had dined at his house twenty years before. In this he was like General Grant and the Prince of Wales. It is a very popular faculty.
Beauvilliers, Méot, Robert, Rose Legacque, the Brothers Very, Hennevan, and Baleine, are the noble army of argonauts in discovering the Parisian restaurant; or rather, they founded it.
The Brothers Very, and the Trois Frères Prevenceaux, both in the Palais Royal, are still great names to compete with. When the allied monarchs held Paris, in 1814, the Brothers Very supplied their table for a daily charge of one hundred and twenty pounds, not including wine, and in Père-la-Chaise a magnificent monument is erected to one of them, declaring that his "whole life was consecrated to the useful arts," as it doubtless was.