Suddenly Mr. Wilkinson started to his feet and began to sing Rule Britannia, but he could get no farther than these words; his strength failed him; he felt himself drop into his chair and from there rolled under the table (coula sous le table). His friend seeing him in this state, emitted one of his noisiest laughs, and stooping to assist him fell by his side.
Brillât-Savarin, viewing the scene with considerable satisfaction and relief, rang the bell, and when Little came up, after addressing him the conventional phrase, “See to it that these gentlemen are properly cared for,” with his friends drank with him their health in a parting glass of punch. The waiter, with his assistants, soon came in and bore away the vanquished, whom they carried out, according to the rule, feet foremost, which expression is used in English to designate those dead or drunk, Mr. Wilkinson still trying to sing Rule Britannia, his friend remaining absolutely motionless.
Next day seeing in the newspapers an account of what had happened, with the remark that the Englishmen were ill, Brillât-Savarin went to see them. He found the friend suffering from a severe attack of indigestion. Mr. Wilkinson was confined to his chair by the gout, brought on probably by his late dissipation. He seemed sensible to the attention and said to Brillât-Savarin, among other things: “Oh! dear sir, you are very good company, indeed, but too hard a drinker for us.”
ANTHELME BRILLAT-SAVARIN
Brillât-Savarin was a convivial soul, a lover of good cheer and openhanded hospitality. The time passed so pleasantly and he was so comfortable while in New York City, that on taking his departure for France, in 1796, he declared that all he asked of Heaven was, never to know greater sorrow in the Old World that he had known in the New. He settled in Paris, and after holding several offices under the Directory, became a judge in the Cour de Cassation, the French court of last resort, where he remained until his death, in 1826. While without special reputation as a jurist, as a judge and expounder of gastronomic excellence, his name has become immortalized.
On the 16th of December, 1796, “the young men of the city who were willing to contribute to the preservation of the Public Safety, at that critical juncture,” were invited to attend a meeting “at Mr. Little’s Porter House in Pine Street that evening at seven o’clock in order to form an association for that laudable purpose.” Soon after this Little moved to No. 42 Broad Street, the old Fraunces’ Tavern. At this place, on Wednesday, July 28, 1802, the two friends of De Witt Clinton and Colonel John Swartwout met to make arrangements for the duel which took place at Hoboken on Saturday, July 31st. A meeting of the gentlemen of the bar of the City of New York was held here February 11, 1802.
