Royalty in times past has had many an accomplished epicure, as learned in culinary lore as in the practice of the cuisine. Charlemagne took a warm personal interest in the management of his table, and Hardicanute, one of our Danish kings, was so great a gourmand that he was designated “Swine’s Mouth”—his table, it is said, having been covered four times a day with the most costly viands that the air, sea, or land could produce. It was Henry de Valois who brought into fashion aromatic sauces and various spicy dainties, inheriting his taste for cooking from Catherine de Medicis, who introduced into France not only ices, but much of the culinary art from Italy; while the Prince de Soubise, immortalised by the sauce named after him, was a connoisseur of no mean order. He could boast of an excellent cook, but a man with princely notions of expenditure. One day the Prince announced his intention to him of giving a supper, and demanded an estimate. The first article on which the Prince cast his eyes was this: “Fifty hams;” whereupon he inquired, “Are you going to feast my whole regiment?”
“My lord,” replied the cook, “you do not understand our resources; give the word, and these fifty hams which confound you, I will put them all into a glass bottle no bigger than my thumb.” Accordingly the Prince nodded, and the article passed.
Charlemagne once ate cheese mixed with parsley seeds at a bishop’s palace, and liked it so much that ever after he had two cases of such cheese sent yearly to Aix-la-Chapelle—a device which Gay has noted:—
“Marbled with sage, the hardened cheese she press’d.”
Charles the Great ate venison with special pleasure, and Henry IV. of France ate melons and oysters whenever possible—a taste which reminds us of that of Frederick, son of Ernest “the Iron,” who on recovering from amputation of the leg one day resolved on dining on melons, his favourite dish. He was told that such a diet would be fatal to him, as it had already been to one Austrian archduke of his house; but he took no heed of the advice. “I will have melons,” said he, “betide what may!” Of melons, accordingly, he ate to his heart’s content, and death followed shortly afterwards.
Louis XIII. was fond of early fruit, and he had strawberries in March, and figs in June. Fagon, physician to Louis XIV., was a famous expert in the culinary art, and in the declining days of his illustrious master devised for him the cotelette à la Maintenon. It appears that the mutton cutlets of Madame de Maintenon were enveloped in curl papers, but Fagon arranged a more artistic and nourishing dish, in which unboned cutlets were spread with nourishing sauce, minced vegetables, and seasoning. The appetite of Louis XIV. in the prime of life had been prodigious, and the Duchess of Orleans tells us in her Memoirs that she had often seen him eat four plates full of soup, a whole pheasant, a partridge, a plate of salad, mutton hashed with garlic, two slices of ham, a dish of pastry, in addition to fruit and sweetmeats. Hence it is not surprising that in this monarch’s reign cooking made the most rapid advances, being at one time employed to give a zest to his glories, and at another to console him in their decline.
It is fortunate for royalty that the history of gastronomy can boast of few such rash acts as that committed by the ex-Emperor Wenceslaus, who, when residing at Prague, where he reigned as King of Bohemia, after his ejection from the imperial throne, once punished a cook who had sent up to him an ill-dressed capon by roasting him on a spit before his own fire. The story, as Dr. Doran says,[24] “might be held to be groundless, were it not that of petty German potentates there are similar stories told which are well authenticated.” But a tragic occurrence of a different character happened in the reign of Louis XIV., who was devoted to gastronomy, and for whose use liqueurs were invented in his old age when, it is said, he could scarcely endure existence without a succession of artificial stimulants. The closing scene of Vatel has often been told, who, to quote the words of the Almanach des Gourmands, “immolated himself with his own hands because the sea-fish had not arrived some hours before it was to be served. So noble a death ensures you, venerable shade, the most glorious immortality. You have proved that the fanaticism of honour can exist in the kitchen as well as in the camp, and that the spit and the saucepan have also their Catos and Deciuses.” Madame de Sévigny, narrating this pathetic instance of self-devotion, thus writes:—
“I wrote you yesterday that Vatel had killed himself. I here give you the affair in detail. The King arrived on the evening of the Thursday; the collation was served in a room hung with jonquils; all was as could be wished. At supper there were some tables where the roast was wanting, on account of several parties which had not been expected. This affected Vatel. He said several times, ‘I am dishonoured; this is a disgrace that I cannot endure.’ He said to Gourville, ‘My head is dizzy; I have not slept for twelve nights; assist me in giving orders.’ Gourville assisted him as much as he could. The roast which had been wanting, not at the table of the King, but at the inferior tables, was constantly present to his mind. Gourville mentioned it to the Prince; the Prince even went to the chamber of Vatel and said to him, ‘Vatel, all is going well; nothing could equal the supper of the King.’ He replied, ‘Monseigneur, your goodness overpowers me; I know that the roast was wanting at two tables.’ ‘Nothing of the sort,’ said the Prince; ‘do not distress yourself, all is going on well.’ Night came; the fireworks failed; they had cost sixteen thousand francs. He rose at four the next morning, determined to attend to everything in person. He found everybody asleep. He meets one of the inferior purveyors, who brought only two packages of sea-fish; he asks, ‘Is that all?’ ‘Yes, sir.’ The man was not aware that Vatel had sent to all the seaports. Vatel waits some time; the other purveyors did not arrive; his brain began to burn; he believed that there would be no more fish. He finds Gourville; he says to him, ‘Monsieur, I shall never survive this disgrace.’ Gourville made light of it. Vatel goes upstairs to his room, places his sword against the door, and stabs himself to the heart; but it was not until the third blow, after giving himself two not mortal, that he fell dead. The fish, however, arrives from all quarters; they seek Vatel to distribute it; they go to his room, they knock, they force open the door; he is found bathed in his blood. They hasten to tell the Prince, who is in despair. The Duke wept; it was on Vatel that his journey from Burgundy hinged. The Prince related what had passed to the King with marks of the deepest sorrow.”[25]
Amidst his other luxuries, Louis XV. was not unmindful of the pleasures of the table, and it is generally understood that tables volantes were invented under his eye. “At the petits soupers of Choisy,” says the poet Rogers, “were first introduced those admirable pieces of mechanism—a table and a sideboard which descended and rose again covered with viands and wines. And thus the most luxurious Court in Europe, after all its boastful refinements, was glad to return at last, by its singular contrivance, to the quiet and privacy of humble life.” Louis XVI., on the other hand, is said to have been somewhat neglectful of his table, a circumstance which, it has been remarked, “was utterly inexcusable, since for a time the great Ude was a member of his establishment.”
But Louis XVIII. was an epicure of the first water, and was nicknamed “Des-huitres” (a pun on dix-huit), because like all the Bourbons he was a great feeder, and especially fond of oysters. One day, when his physician reproached his cook with “ruining the royal health by savoury juices, the dignitary of the kitchen remarked that it was the office of the cook to supply his Majesty with pleasant dishes, and that it was the duty of the doctor to enable the King to digest them.”[26] He had the Duc d’Escars for his grand maître d’hôtel, a disappointed man, however, as he died inconsolable at not having given his name to a single dish after having devoted his whole life to the culinary art. He did not lose the confidence of his royal master, with whom, when he was closeted to discuss some new dish, the ministers were kept waiting in the antechamber, and the next day the following announcement regularly appeared in the official journals: “M. le Duc d’Escars a travaillé dans le Cabinet.” The fate of M. d’Escars was the harder because he died a victim to gastronomy. It appears that Louis XVIII. had invented the truffes à la purée d’ortolans, and, reluctant to disclose the secret to an unreliable menial, he invariably prepared the dish with his own hands, assisted by the Duc. On one occasion they had conjointly prepared a dish of more than ordinary dimensions, and duly consumed the whole of it. In the middle of the night the Duc 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 and told that the Duc was dying of his invention. “Dying!” exclaimed Louis; “dying of my truffes à la purée? I was right then. I always said that I had the better stomach of the two!”