WHENEVER we suffer from stomach trouble, we have the right to make a grievance of it against our grandparents of the First Empire, for their appalling voracity is at the root of many of the gastric affections of today. Dinners like Cambaceres's, lasting five hours, must inevitably be paid for sooner or later. It is only rather tiresome that we should be the ones to clear the debt.
Let us try to be good losers and recall that generation at its meals without too much bitterness. We shall soon discover that their ideas and habits in gastronomical matters were not in the least like our own. Everything will seem odd to us, the hours of rneals to begin with.
The morning of a bourgeois who liked doing himself well included two separate breakfasts: the cup of coffee or chocolate taken on rising and, towards ten or eleven o'clock, a more copious meal of eggs and cold meat — sometimes grilled meat — called for some unknown reason dejeuner a la fourchette. This was a little, unpretentious meal, dispatched in one's dressing-gown, which intimate friends often dropped in to share, whether they had been invited or not. No mark of friendship was more appreciated than this brief explanation of a ring at the door: Tve come to ask you for some breakfast/ It might not delight a Parisian of today so much.
The hour of dinner, which in the past had been fixed at the beginning of the afternoon, while we have since moved it to the end, seems to have varied a great deal under the Empire. The table was laid more or less early according to the person's rank, the quarter in which he lived and the profession he followed. c l bet they get up at seven and dine at two/ says somebody in a play by Alexandre Duval, of some good people living in the Marais. The same rule obtained for workpeople and small shopkeepers, but people of higher condition waited till five or six for the important meal of the day.
A few people, attached to their old ways, may have complained of the new, but they were forced to admit that the restaurants were never empty till the end of the afternoon. As for fashionable occasions, the hour mentioned on the invitation cards was usually five or half-past. But one had to read between the lines: five o'clock, by itself, really meant six; -five o'clock precisely meant half-past five. Only the term •jive o'clock very precisely was to be taken literally.
Anyone ignorant of these subtleties of etiquette ran the risk of arriving ridiculously early at his host's house and finding the domestics laying the table.
With dinners so late as this, the fashion for suppers, so dear to the old regime, naturally lost many of its followers. There were so few of them among the general public that henceforth most restaurants closed at the same time as the theatres.
It was only in households that liked going to bed late that suppers of a sort were still improvised, under the more up-to-date name of English teas. But their menus were so ample, and their accompaniments so luxurious, that they were less like our little snacks of the twentieth century than very copious evening dinners. The first course usually consisted of a huge roast, such as a twenty-pound leg of mutton, two other no less considerable dishes, eight smaller ones and six hors-d'oeuvres. Roast meats appeared in the second course as well, besides side-dishes, dessert and ices. Very strong coffee and numerous liqueurs completed the programme of a well-filled day.
The acrobatic feats performed by the stomachs of the Consulate and the Empire were astonishing. Their owners had not even the excuse that the French of the time of Louis XIV could proffer, that of imitating a sovereign possessing a formidable appetite. Bonaparte was, on the contrary, a model
Minor history gives us precise details of his way of life at the Tuileries. His daily menus were hardly more complicated than -those of an ordinary man of means. As a rule he dispatched his meals at military speed: fifteen minutes at most for evening dinner, in Josephine's company; a little less haste on Sundays for the feast that brought together the entire Bonaparte family and a few dignitaries of the Court.
Napoleon himself seems never to have been very appreciative of the pleasures of the table. He cared so little for them that sometimes, if he had work to finish, he would take no notice of dinner-time, to the great distress of the palace scullions, who were obliged, one evening, to spit twenty-three chickens, one after another, so that the last one might be eatable. When a man can throw away twenty-three chickens, it is fair to conclude that he knows nothing about food.
Such was actually the monarch's own opinion. *I£ you are a small eater/ he said to a certain diplomat, 'come to me. But if you want to eat a lot, go to Cambaceres/ And even after a century and a half this advice seems judicious, for the sight of the Second Consul playing the part of host was not a little comical.
A foreigner who dined with him towards the end of 1802, when he was still living in the Hotel d'EIboeuf in the Carrousel, describes the scene with full details. Thirty-six guests were gathered round a huge table, covered with flowers and silver-plated chafing-dishes. The footmen were in full consular livery, the butlers wore maroon coats with gold-chequered buttons. They seemed to be acting as supers only, for the host took it upon himself to carve all the main dishes, offering each guest the morsel most likely to please him. A heavy task for the head of such an assembly, with a succession of more than sixty dishes to cope with. The session ended, reckon the number of times the amphytrion plunged his knife into the legs of mutton and the fowls, and how many times he asked the same questions of each guest in turn.
c JMay I give you this little wing, Monsieur le Conseiller
"Which do you prefer, Excellency? The parson's nose or the merrythought?'
But Cambaceres did not mind the trouble. People had come to his house to eat well, and he was determined that everybody should do his duty. The trial was a bit severe, however, for those with a middling appetite. The young Norvins, Napoleon's future biographer, discovered this one evening to his discomfort, when dining at the Hotel d'Elboeuf after his return from Santo Domingo. Under the pretext that his digestion had been impaired by his travels and the doctor had prescribed a diet, he was placed beside his host, who had little fancy dishes prepared for him. 'I accepted all his favours', wrote Norvins later in his Memorial, 'with the discretion of a eunuch in the harem, seizing the opportunity to get rid of my plate every time he turned his head,*
Another drawback to these parties was their lack of gaiety, such special food having to be savoured with profound concentration. Woe to the imprudent guest daring to raise his voice while the famous partridges, roasted on one side and grilled on the other — a speciality of the house - were being sampled! He was called to order, as the obese Aigrefeuille was one day. 'Don't talk so loud, my friend! Really, one can't tell what one's eating!'
To Cambaceres gastronomy was really a sort of religion. He not only ransacked the forced-vegetable shops of Paris, he not only had the most delicate specialities of the provinces sent him — game from his estate at Livet, ducks from Strasbourg, potted meats from Nerac-but for certain consignments he even mobilized the State Messengers. This practice nearly got him into trouble during the Congress of Lune-ville. Bonaparte, having discovered that several individuals were misusing the official dispatch box, gave orders that it should be strictly reserved for the transport of dispatches. That evening the Second Consul entered Bourienne's office looking very pale. Tve come to ask you for an exemption. How do you think one can make friends if one can't give them choice food? You know yourself that it's mainly by means of the table that one governs/ For him, good politics was synonymous with good cooking. The idea had the good fortune to amuse Bonaparte, who settled the business himself. 'Cheer up, my good man*, he said, 'and don't get in a state. The Messengers shall continue to convey your truffled turkeys, your Mayence pasties and your red-legged partridges/