the leaf, are of a delicate bitter flavour; and at
Metz and in Lorraine and Alsace form an
important article of commerce. The Almanac
des Gourmands says, with ruthless irony:

"The redbreast is the sad proof of this truth,
that the gourmand is by nature and in his very
essence a being cruel and inhuman; for he has
no pity on this charming bird of passage, whose
gentleness and confiding familiarity should
shelter him from the rude hands of the cook.
But, then, if one pitied everybody, one would
eat nothing; and, commiseration apart, we
must allow that the robin, which holds a
conspicuous rank in the class of beccafici, is a very
succulent roast. This amiable bird is eaten
à la broche and en salmis."

Frogs are delicious fricasseed or fried with
crisp parsley, so says an eminent authority, and
what all France also says and half America
confirms must be true. The first frog we ate, we took
for a young rabbit, until we shuddered on finding
its blanched bones soft and gristly. We do not
know when these amphibious creatures were
first bred and fed for the table. We have a
suspicion that frogs are not eaten so much in Paris
as they used to be thirty years ago. The animal
has grown scarcer, but the snowy hind legs,
gracefully extended on a plate, are still seen in
the Parisian markets.

Research has not enabled us to ascertain
either, at what date that nutritious article of
food, snails, was first used in French cookery.
They are still sold in heaps in the shops on
the quays near the Louvre, and are also to be
seen in glutinous cohesive masses in the shops
of small restaurants in ambiguous streets
leading out of Leicester-square.

French cooking, historically considered, recals
some pleasant scenes to everyone who has ever
crossed the Channel. There is something very
sociable and pleasant in the way in which a
French bourgeois family prepares for a meal.
I see one before me now. The English of the
same class too often sit down in a sullen, stolid,
revengeful way, preserving a dead silence, and
apparently sworn to begin the attack at the
same moment. They really do manage these
things better in France. The good bonhomme
tucks his napkin in his top button-hole, his
smiling wife adjusts the serviette round the neck
of her favourite Madelaine, the youngest; the
bread is made a matter of great study. After
the soup is gone, the wholesome but not
inebriating Medoc is turned impartially into the
glasses. The slices of veal pass round, and are
selected with discrimination, yet without
selfishness. Last of all, comes the little dessert,
that fitting finale for a light and digestible dinner.
"The Four Beggars" are discussed with
simple-hearted unction, the figs praised, the nuts
commended, the raisins eulogised, the almonds
admired.

"Pooh, sir! It is all very well," grumbles
our true Englishman; "but a frivolous nation
that has never been free since the first
Revolution, and not then, is naturally disposed to
rejoice for small indulgences."

Yet, Monsieur l'Anglais, it is a great thing
to be easily pleased.

A French restaurant is a pleasant place, and
how unlike an English dining-room! What can
be pleasanter than a seat near the open door on
a summer evening, say at Véfour's? The noise
is a complex but not disagreeable sound. Trees
rustling without, the children playing with their
bonnes; twilight yielding to lamplight gradually
up the arcades; a comedy close by, and you
imagine what it will be—scenes from the Revolution
as once enacted in this pleasant square gleam
red across the mirror of your glass of Burgundy.
The waiters skim and flit about, cheerful and
epigrammatic, delighting in the applause with
which special dishes are received, and proud of
their benevolent occupation. How monsieur
and madame enjoy their dinner, crowing over
each plat, smiling at the freshness of the salad,
applauding the fragrance of the meringue!
How they laugh at the smallest of jokes, and
make bon mots upon their favourite waiter!
How they address themselves to the coffee and
the chasse! The gaiety of the French waiter,
and the way he finally dashes up the items, is
worth the price of the dinner in itself.

What agreeable memories the travelled
Englishman brings with him too from the Continent,
of his dinners at French railway stations. Such
kindly promptitude, such bland alacrity to
oblige, such an honest wish to fully earn the
money and see the meal quietly enjoyed. On
the great French line to Strasburg you can now
have a dinner of several covers brought you in
your railway carriage; you eat as you go, and
return the dishes and plates by the guard.
This is luxury indeed! But the ordinary French
railway-station dinner (especially when there
are not too many epergnes and too much plate
upon the table) is very pleasant. The warm,
nourishing soup, the savoury cutlet or slice of
veal, with sorel, the hot meat and cresses, the
sweet omelette, the macaroon, and bunch of
grapes, all come in such tasteful order, and are
so fairly what they seem, that they make us
shudder at the thought of the English railway
station, with its vapid beer, dry biscuit, and
stale sandwiches, the costly peppered soup that
is never ready when you want it, the salt ham
and the leaden pork-pie!

The great tree of French cookery struck root
on the day when Mary de Medicis set foot in
Marseilles; it is still throwing forth its lavish
branches, and may it flourish till the crack of
doom! France, foster-mother of the vine, what
tyrant or conqueror can break thy plates or put
out thy stoves, while thy various provinces feed
thee with such dainties! Strasbourg and
Toulouse with foies gras, Angoulême with partridge
patés, Le Mans and La Flêche with capons,
Perigord with truffled turkeys. Nerac sends
her terrines; Sarlat her red-legged partridges;
Arles her sausages; Troyes her little tongues
and her fromage de cochon; Cancale and Etretat
send their oysters; Strasbourg gives her salmon,
carp, and crawfish; Rouen her ducklings, Dijon,
Chalons, and Rheims send their mustard,