Curtis, cost the party between thirty and forty
pounds a piece; but then special messengers
had been sent to Westphalia to choose hams.
Lord Southampton once gave a dinner at the
Albion, at ten guineas a head.

Of modern epicures, Cambacérès, Second
Consul under the Empire, and afterwards
Napoleon's faithful Chancellor, was the most pre-
eminent. This excellent minister was as fond
of business as he was of good eating, for, with
all his indolence and epicureanism, he worked
hard enough to satisfy even Bonaparte. On one
occasion (it is said, when the fate of the poor
Duke d'Enghien was discussing), Cambacérès
was detained very late; as the hour of dinner
approached, the minister betrayed unmistakable,
and indeed irrepressible, symptoms of
impatience, anxiety, and restlessness. At last,
unable to control himself, he sat down at
an escritoir in the council-room and wrote a
note, which he called a gentleman usher to
carry. Napoleon smiled, and nodded to an
aide-de-camp to intercept the important
despatch. When it was brought him, Cambacérès
turned red, and begged, like a chidden schoolboy,
that his notes on small domestic matters
might not be read aloud. Napoleon, however,
had a will, and he persisted. It was a billet-
doux to the cook, containing only these
impressive words:

"Preserve the entremets; the roasts are
lost."

When Napoleon was pleased with foreign
ambassadors, he used to send them for a treat
to "Go and dine with Cambacérès." The
emperor was once very angry with the Cour
des Comptes for disallowing an item of three
hundred francs for trout, charged to Cambacérès
by the municipality of Geneva.

It might be that very Duc d'Enghien dinner
which Brillat Savarin describes with an exquisite
unction. He had been invited to dine at half-
past five, and everybody was in time, as
Cambacérès liked punctuality, and sometimes even
scolded the dilatory.

"I was struck," says Brillat, "on my arrival
by the air of consternation that reigned in the
assembly; they spoke aside; they looked into
the court-yard; some faces announced stupefaction;
something extraordinary had certainly
come to pass. Monseigneur had been sent for
to the council of state, and no one knew when
he would return. A mere matter of a quarter
of an hour," said Brillat, with an air of
indifference, intended to hide the real misgivings
of his heart. At the third hour, the discontent
rose to mutiny; every one complained.

By the fourth hour all the symptoms were
aggravated, in spite of Brillat's suggesting that
he whose absence rendered them miserable was,
no doubt, far more miserable than they.

At last a pale guest appeared, restless and
unhappy. He had ventured down as far as
the kitchen, and had returned overcome. His
face announced the end of the world; he
exclaimed in a voice hardly articulate, and in that
muffled tone which expresses at once the fear
of making a noise, and the desire of being
heard: "Monseigneur went out without giving
orders, and however long his absence, dinner
will not be served till his return."

All hope was gone; despair struck a livid
pallor into every once rosy face.

"Amongst all these martyrs the most wretched
was the good D'Aigrefeuille; his body was all
over suffering, and the agony of Laocoon was
in his face. Pale, distracted, seeing nothing,
he sat crouched upon an easy chair, crossed his
little hands upon his large belly, and closed his
eyes, now to sleep, now to wait the approach of
death. Death, however, came not. Towards
ten, a carriage was heard rolling into the court-
yard. The whole party sprang spontaneously
to their legs. Hilarity succeeded to sadness,
and in five minutes we were at table. But alas!
the hour of appetite was past. All had the air
of being surprised at beginning dinner at so late
an hour; the jaws had not that isochronous
movement which announces regular work, and
I know that many guests were seriously
inconvenienced by the delay."

Brillat Savarin published his famous book,
"The Physiology of Taste," in 1825. It was
written on the principles of the Almanac des
Gourmands (commenced in 1803), and was the
first recognised attempt to treat gastronomy as
an intellectual pursuit and a positive profession.
Brillat, born at Belley in 1755, was a judge of
the Court of Cassation, and a member of most of
the French scientific societies. He began life
successfully as an advocate, and in 1789 was
elected a member of the Constituent Assembly.
He joined the moderate party, did his best
to avert cruelty and oppression, and was
appointed President of the Civil Tribunal for the
department of L'Ain. Proscribed during the
red terror, Brillat fled to Switzerland, where he
consoled himself with science and cooking.
He then emigrated to America, where a vast
untrodden prairie of gastronomy lay before
him. He lived there by teaching French and
music. It is said that, having been once out
with Jefferson, he shot a wild turkey. Jefferson,
on their way home, began relating
interesting anecdotes of Washington and the War
of Independence. Seeing M. Savarin quite
absent and paying no attention, Jefferson
stopped, a little nettled, and was about to leave
him.

"My dear sir," said the epicure in exile, "I
beg ten thousand pardons, but I was just
thinking how I should dress my wild turkey."

Brillat returned to France in 1796, filled
several employments under the Directory, was
reappointed to his old office of judge of the
Court of Cassation, and died in 1826. His
admirable book ran rapidly through five or six
editions, besides the Belgian piracies.

Talleyrand tells that Savarin was once
journeying to Lyons; arriving at Sens, he
determined to dine there. He sent, according to
his invariable custom, for the cook of the hotel,
and asked good-humouredly what he could
have?