We find in the "MÉnagier," amongst a long list of the common soups the receipts for which are given, soup made of "dried peas and the water in which bacon has been boiled," and, in Lent, "salted-whale water;" watercress soup, cabbage soup, cheese soup, and gramose soup, which was prepared by adding stewed meat to the water in which meat had already been boiled, and adding beaten eggs and verjuice; and, lastly, the souppe despourvue, which was rapidly made at the hotels, for unexpected travellers, and was a sort of soup made from the odds and ends of the larder. In those days there is no doubt but that hot soup formed an indispensable part of the daily meals, and that each person took it at least twice a day, according to the old proverb:--

"Soupe la soir, soupe le matin,
C'est l'ordinaire du bon chrÉtien."

("Soup in the evening, and soup in the morning,
Is the everyday food of a good Christian.")

The cooking apparatus of that period consisted of a whole glittering array of cauldrons, saucepans, kettles, and vessels of red and yellow copper, which hardly sufficed for all the rich soups for which France was so famous. Thence the old proverb, "En France sont les grands soupiers."

But besides these soups, which were in fact looked upon as "common, and without spice," a number of dishes were served under the generic name of soup, which constituted the principal luxuries at the great tables in the fourteenth century, but which do not altogether bear out the names under which we find them. For instance, there was haricot mutton, a sort of stew; thin chicken broth; veal broth with herbs; soup made of veal, roe, stag, wild boar, pork, hare and rabbit soup flavoured with green peas, &c.

The greater number of these soups were very rich, very expensive, several being served at the same time; and in order to please the eye as well as the taste they were generally made of various colours, sweetened with sugar, and sprinkled with pomegranate seeds and aromatic herbs, such as marjoram, sage, thyme, sweet basil, savoury, &c.

These descriptions of soups were perfect luxuries, and were taken instead of sweets. As a proof of this we must refer to the famous soupe dorÉe, the description of which is given by Taillevent, head cook of Charles VII., in the following words, "Toast slices of bread, throw them into a jelly made of sugar, white wine, yolk of egg, and rosewater; when they are well soaked fry them, then throw them again into the rosewater and sprinkle them with sugar and saffron."

It is possible that even now this kind of soup might find some favour; but we cannot say the same for those made with mustard, hemp-seed, millet, verjuice, and a number of others much in repute at that period; for we see in Rabelais that the French were the greatest soup eaters in the world, and boasted to be the inventors of seventy sorts.

We have already remarked that broths were in use at the remotest periods, for, from the time that the practice of boiling various meats was first adopted, it must have been discovered that the water in which they were so boiled became savoury and nourishing. "In the time of the great King Francis I.," says NoËl du Fail, in his "Contes d'Eutrapel," "in many places the saucepan was put on to the table, on which there was only one other large dish, of beef, mutton, veal, and bacon, garnished with a large bunch of cooked herbs, the whole of which mixture composed a porridge, and a real restorer and elixir of life. From this came the adage, 'The soup in the great pot and the dainties in the hotch-potch.'"

At one time they made what they imagined to be strengthening broths for invalids, though their virtue must have been somewhat delusive, for, after having boiled down various materials in a close kettle and at a slow fire, they then distilled from this, and the water thus obtained was administered as a sovereign remedy. The common sense of Bernard Palissy did not fail to make him see this absurdity, and to protest against this ridiculous custom: "Take a capon," he says, "a partridge, or anything else, cook it well, and then if you smell the broth you will find it very good, and if you taste it you will find it has plenty of flavour; so much so that you will feel that it contains something to invigorate you. Distil this, on the contrary, and take the water then collected and taste it, and you will find it insipid, and without smell except that of burning. This should convince you that your restorer does not give that nourishment to the weak body for which you recommend it as a means of making good blood, and restoring and strengthening the spirits."

The taste for broths made of flour was formerly almost universal in France and over the whole of Europe; it is spoken of repeatedly in the histories and annals of monasteries; and we know that the Normans, who made it their principal nutriment, were surnamed bouilleux. They were indeed almost like the Romans who in olden times, before their wars with eastern nations, gave up making bread, and ate their corn simply boiled in water.

In the fourteenth century the broths and soups were made with millet-flour and mixed wheats. The pure wheat flour was steeped in milk seasoned with sugar, saffron, honey, sweet wine or aromatic herbs, and sometimes butter, fat, and yolks of eggs were added. It was on account of this that the bread of the ancients so much resembled cakes, and it was also from this fact that the art of the pastrycook took its rise.

Wheat made into gruel for a long time was an important ingredient in cooking, being the basis of a famous preparation called fromentÉe, which was a bouillie of milk, made creamy by the addition of yolks of eggs, and which served as a liquor in which to roast meats and fish. There were, besides, several sorts of fromentÉe, all equally esteemed, and Taillevent recommended the following receipt, which differs from the one above given:--"First boil your wheat in water, then put into it the juice or gravy of fat meat, or, if you like it better, milk of almonds, and by this means you will make a soup fit for fasts, because it dissolves slowly, is of slow digestion and nourishes much. In this way, too, you can make ordiat, or barley soup, which is more generally approved than the said fromentÉe."

Semolina, vermicelli, macaroni, &c., which were called Italian because they originally came from that country, have been in use in France longer than is generally supposed. They were first introduced after the expedition of Charles VIII. into Italy, and the conquest of the kingdom of Naples; that is, in the reign of Louis XII., or the first years of the sixteenth century.

Pies, Stews, Roasts, Salads, &c.--Pastry made with fat, which might be supposed to have been the invention of modern kitchens, was in great repute amongst our ancestors. The manufacture of sweet and savoury pastry was intrusted to the care of the good mÉnagiers of all ranks and conditions, and to the corporation of pastrycooks, who obtained their statutes only in the middle of the sixteenth century; the united skill of these, both in Paris and in the provinces, multiplied the different sorts of tarts and meat pies to a very great extent. So much was this the case that these ingenious productions became a special art, worthy of rivalling even cookery itself (Figs. 117, 118, and 130). One of the earliest known receipts for making pies is that of Gaces de la Bigne, first chaplain of Kings John, Charles V., and Charles VI. We find it in a sporting poem, and it deserves to be quoted verbatim as a record of the royal kitchen of the fourteenth century. It will be observed on perusing it that nothing was spared either in pastry or in cookery, and that expense was not considered when it was a question of satisfying the appetite.

"Trois perdriaulx gros et reffais
Au milieu du patÉ me mets;
Mais gardes bien que tu ne failles
A moi prendre six grosses cailles,
De quoi tu les apuyeras.
Et puis aprÈs tu me prendras
Une douzaine d'alouÈtes
Qu'environ les cailles me mettes,
Et puis pendras de ces machÉs
Et de ces petits oiselÉs:
Selon ce que tu en auras,
Le patÉ m'en billeteras.
Or te fault faire pourvÉance
D'un pen de lart, sans point de rance,
Que tu tailleras comme dÉ:
S'en sera le pastÉ pouldrÉ.
S tu le veux de bonne guise,
Du vertjus la grappe y soit mise,
D'un bien peu de sel soit pouldrÉ ...
... Fay mettre des oeufs en la paste,
Les croutes un peu rudement
Faictes de flour de pur froment ...
... N'y mets espices ni fromaige ...
Au four bien À point chaud le met,
Qui de cendre ait l'atre bien net;
E quand sera bien À point cuit,
I n'est si bon mangier, ce cuit."

("Put me in the middle of the pie three young partridges large and fat;
But take good care not to fail to take six fine quail to put by their side.
After that you must take a dozen skylarks, which round the quail you must place;
And then you must take some thrushes and such other little birds as you can get to garnish the pie.
Further, you must provide yourself with a little bacon, which must not be in the least rank (reasty), and you must cut it into pieces of the size of a die, and sprinkle them into the pie.
If you want it to be in quite good form, you must put some sour grapes in and a very little salt ...
... Have eggs put into the paste, and the crust made rather hard of the flour of pure wheat.
Put in neither spice nor cheese ...
Put it into the oven just at the proper heat,
The bottom of which must be quite free from ashes;
And when it is baked enough, isn't that a dish to feast on!")

From this period all treatises on cookery are full of the same kind of receipts for making "pies of young chickens, of fresh venison, of veal, of eels, of bream and salmon, of young rabbits, of pigeons, of small birds, of geese, and of narrois" (a mixture of cod's liver and hashed fish). We may mention also the small pies, which were made of minced beef and raisins, similar to our mince pies, and which were hawked in the streets of Paris, until their sale was forbidden, because the trade encouraged greediness on the one hand and laziness on the other.

Ancient pastries, owing to their shapes, received the name of tourte or tarte, from the Latin torta, a large hunch of bread. This name was afterwards exclusively used for hot pies, whether they contained vegetables, meat, or fish. But towards the end of the fourteenth century tourte and tarte was applied to pastry containing, herbs, fruits, or preserves, and pÂtÉ to those containing any kind of meat, game, or fish.

It was only in the course of the sixteenth century that the name of potage ceased to be applied to stews, whose number equalled their variety, for on a bill of fare of a banquet of that period we find more than fifty different sorts of potages mentioned. The greater number of these dishes have disappeared from our books on cookery, having gone out of fashion; but there are two stews which were popular during many centuries, and which have maintained their reputation, although they do not now exactly represent what they formerly did. The pot-pourri, which was composed of veal, beef, mutton, bacon, and vegetables, and the galimafrÉe, a fricassee of poultry, sprinkled with verjuice, flavoured with spices, and surrounded by a sauce composed of vinegar, bread crumbs, cinnamon, ginger, &c. (Fig. 119).

The highest aim of the cooks of the Taillevent school was to make dishes not only palatable, but also pleasing to the eye. These masters in the art of cooking might be said to be both sculptors and painters, so much did they decorate their works, their object being to surprise or amuse the guests by concealing the real nature of the disbes. Froissart, speaking of a repast given in his time, says that there were a number of "dishes so curious and disguised that it was impossible to guess what they were." For instance, the bill of fare above referred to mentions a lion and a sun made of white chicken, a pink jelly, with diamond-shaped points; and, as if the object of cookery was to disguise food and deceive epicures, Taillevent facetiously gives us a receipt for making fried or roast butter and for cooking eggs on the spit.

The roasts were as numerous as the stews. A treatise of the fourteenth century names about thirty, beginning with a sirloin of beef, which must have been one of the most common, and ending with a swan, which appeared on table in full plumage. This last was the triumph of cookery, inasmuch as it presented this magnificent bird to the eyes of the astonished guests just as if he were living and swimming. His beak was gilt, his body silvered, resting 'on a mass of brown pastry, painted green in order to represent a grass field. Eight banners of silk were placed round, and a cloth of the same material served as a carpet for the whole dish, which towered above the other appointments of the table.

The peacock, which was as much thought of then as it is little valued now, was similarly arrayed, and was brought to table amidst a flourish of trumpets and the applause of all present. The modes of preparing other roasts much resembled the present system in their simplicity, with this difference, that strong meats were first boiled to render them tender, and no roast was ever handed over to the skill of the carver without first being thoroughly basted with orange juice and rose water, and covered with sugar and powdered spices.

We must not forget to mention the broiled dishes, the invention of which is attributed to hunters, and which Rabelais continually refers to as acting as stimulants and irresistibly exciting the thirst for wine at the sumptuous feasts of those voracious heroes (Fig. 120).

The custom of introducing salads after roasts was already established in the fifteenth century. However, a salad, of whatever sort, was never brought to table in its natural state; for, besides the raw herbs, dressed in the same manner as in our days, it contained several mixtures, such as cooked vegetables, and the crests, livers, or brains of poultry. After the salads fish was served; sometimes fried, sometimes sliced with eggs or reduced to a sort of pulp, which was called carpÉe or charpie, and sometimes it was boiled in water or wine, with strong seasoning. Near the salads, in the course of the dinner, dishes of eggs prepared in various ways were generally served. Many of these are now in use, such as the poached egg, the hard-boiled egg, egg sauce, &c.

Seasonings.--We have already stated that the taste for spices much increased in Europe after the Crusades; and in this rapid historical sketch of the food of the French people in the Middle Ages it must have been observed to what an extent this taste had become developed in France (Fig. 121). This was the origin of sauces, all, or almost all, of which were highly spiced, and were generally used with boiled, roast, or grilled meats. A few of these sauces, such as the yellow, the green, and the camÉline, became so necessary in cooking that numerous persons took to manufacturing them by wholesale, and they were hawked in the streets of Paris.

These sauce-criers were first called saulciers, then vinaigriers-moustardiers, and when Louis XII. united them in a body, as their business had considerably increased, they were termed sauciers-moutardiers-vinaigriers, distillers of brandy and spirits of wine, and buffetiers (from buffet, a sideboard).

But very soon the corporation became divided, no doubt from the force of circumstances; and on one side we find the distillers, and on the other the master-cooks and cooks, or porte-chapes, as they were called, because, when they carried on their business of cooking, they covered their dishes with a chape, that is, a cope or tin cover (Fig. 122), so as to keep them warm.

The list of sauces of the fourteenth century, given by the "MÉnagier de Paris," is most complicated; but, on examining the receipts, it becomes clear that the variety of those preparations, intended to sharpen the appetite, resulted principally from the spicy ingredients with which they were flavoured; and it is here worthy of remark that pepper, in these days exclusively obtained from America, was known and generally used long before the time of Columbus. It is mentioned in a document, of the time of Clotaire III. (660); and it is clear, therefore, that before the discovery of the New World pepper and spices were imported into Europe from the East.

Mustard, which was an ingredient in so many dishes, was cultivated and manufactured in the thirteenth century in the neighbourhood of Dijon and Angers.

According to a popular adage, garlic was the medicine (thÉriaque) of peasants; town-people for a long time greatly appreciated aillÉe, which was a sauce made of garlic, and sold ready prepared in the streets of Paris.

The custom of using anchovies as a flavouring is also very ancient. This was also done with botargue and cavial, two sorts of side-dishes, which consisted of fishes' eggs, chiefly mullet and sturgeon, properly salted or dried, and mixed with fresh or pickled olives. The olives for the use of the lower orders were brought from Languedoc and Provence, whereas those for the rich were imported from Spain and some from Syria. It was also from the south of France that the rest of the kingdom was supplied with olive oil, for which, to this day, those provinces have preserved their renown; but as early as the twelfth and thirteenth centuries oil of walnuts was brought from the centre of France to Paris, and this, although cheaper, was superseded by oil extracted from the poppy.

Truffles, though known and esteemed by the ancients, disappeared from the gastronomie collection of our forefathers. It was only in the fourteenth century that they were again introduced, but evidently without a knowledge of their culinary qualities, since, after being preserved in vinegar, they were soaked in hot water, and afterwards served up in butter. We may also here mention sorrel and the common mushroom, which were used in cooking during the Middle Ages.

On the strength of the old proverb, "Sugar has never spoiled sauce," sugar was put into all sauces which were not piquantes, and generally some perfumed water was added to them, such as rose-water. This was made in great quantities by exposing to the sun a basin full of water, covered over by another basin of glass, under which was a little vase containing rose-leaves. This rose-water was added to all stews, pastries, and beverages. It is very doubtful as to the period at which white lump sugar became known in the West. However, in an account of the house of the Dauphin Viennois (1333) mention is made of "white sugar;" and the author of the "MÉnagier de Paris" frequently speaks of this white sugar, which, before the discovery, or rather colonisation, of America, was brought, ready refined, from the Grecian islands, and especially from Candia.

Verjuice, or green juice, which, with vinegar, formed the essential basis of sauces, and is now extracted from a species of green grape, which never ripens, was originally the juice of sorrel; another sort was extracted by pounding the green blades of wheat. Vinegar was originally merely soured wine, as the word vin-aigre denotes. The mode of manufacturing it by artificial means, in order to render the taste more pungent and the quality better, is very ancient. It is needless to state that it was scented by the infusion of herbs or flowers--roses, elder, cloves, &c.; but it was not much before the sixteenth century that it was used for pickling herbs or fruits and vegetables, such as gherkins, onions, cucumber, purslain, &c.

Salt, which from the remotest periods was the condiment par excellence, and the trade in which had been free up to the fourteenth century, became, from that period, the subject of repeated taxation. The levying of these taxes was a frequent cause of tumult amongst the people, who saw with marked displeasure the exigencies of the excise gradually raising the price of an article of primary necessity. We have already mentioned times during which the price of salt was so exorbitant that the rich alone could put it in their bread. Thus, in the reign of Francis I., it was almost as dear as Indian spices.

Sweet Dishes, Desserts, &c.--In the fourteenth century, the first courses of a repast were called mets or assiettes; the last, "entremets, dorures, issue de table, desserte, and boule-hors."

The dessert consisted generally of baked pears, medlars, pealed walnuts, figs, dates, peaches, grapes, filberts, spices, and white or red sugar-plums.

At the issue de table wafers or some other light pastry were introduced, which were eaten with the hypocras wine. The boute-hors, which was served when the guests, after having washed their hands and said grace, had passed into the drawing-room, consisted of spices, different from those which had appeared at dessert, and intended specially to assist the digestion; and for this object they must have been much needed, considering that a repast lasted several hours. Whilst eating these spices they drank Grenache, Malmsey, or aromatic wines (Fig. 123).

It was only at the banquets and great repeats that sweet dishes and dorures appeared, and they seem to have been introduced for the purpose of exhibiting the power of the imagination and the talent in execution of the master-cook.

The dorures consisted of jellies of all sorts and colours; swans, peacocks, bitterns, and herons, on gala feasts, were served in full feather on a raised platform in the middle of the table, and hence the name of "raised dishes." As for the side-dishes, properly so called, the long list collected in the "MÉnagier" shows us that they were served at table indiscriminately, for stuffed chickens at times followed hashed porpoise in sauce, lark pies succeeded lamb sausages, and pike's-eggs fritters appeared after orange preserve.

At a later period the luxury of side-dishes consisted in the quantity and in the variety of the pastry; Rabelais names sixteen different sorts at one repast; Taillevent mentions pastry called covered pastry, Bourbonnaise pastry, double-faced pastry, pear pastry, and apple pastry; Platina speaks of the white pastry with quince, elder flowers, rice, roses, chestnuts, &c. The fashion of having pastry is, however, of very ancient date, for in the book of the "Proverbs" of the thirteenth century, we find that the pies of Dourlens and the pastry of Chartres were then in great celebrity.

In a charter of Robert le Bouillon, Bishop of Amiens, in 1311, mention is made of a cake composed of puff flaky paste; these cakes, however, are less ancient than the firm pastry called bean cake, or king's cake, which, from the earliest days of monarchy, appeared on all the tables, not only at the feast of the Epiphany, but also on every festive occasion.

Amongst the dry and sweet pastries from the small oven which appeared at the issue de table, the first to be noticed were those made of almonds, nuts, &c., and such choice morsels, which were very expensive; then came the cream or cheesecakes, the petits choux, made of butter and eggs; the ÉchaudÉs, of which the people were very fond, and St. Louis even allowed the bakers to cook them on Sundays and feast days for the poor; wafers, which are older than the thirteenth century; and lastly the oublies, which, under the names of nieules, esterets, and supplications, gave rise to such an extensive trade that a corporation was established in Paris, called the oublayeurs, oublayers, or oublieux, whose statutes directed that none should be admitted to exercise the trade unless he was able to make in one day 500 large oublies, 300 supplications, and 200 esterets.

Repasts and Feasts.

We have had to treat elsewhere of the rules and regulations of the repasts under the Merovingian and Carlovingian kings. We have also spoken of the table service of the thirteenth century (see chapter on "Private Life"). The earliest author who has left us any documents on this curious subject is that excellent bourgeois to whom we owe the "MÉnagier de Paris." He describes, for instance, in its fullest details, a repast which was given in the fourteenth century by the AbbÉ de Lagny, to the Bishop of Paris, the President of the Parliament, the King's attorney and advocate, and other members of his council, in all sixteen guests. We find from this account that "my lord of Paris, occupying the place of honour, was, in consequence of his rank, served on covered dishes by three of his squires, as was the custom for the King, the royal princes, the dukes, and peers; that Master President, who was seated by the side of the bishop, was also served by one of his own servants, but on uncovered dishes, and the other guests were seated at table according to the order indicated by their titles or charges."

The bill of fare of this feast, which was given on a fast-day, is the more worthy of attention, in that it proves to us what numerous resources cookery already possessed. This was especially the case as regards fish, notwithstanding that the transport of fresh sea-fish was so difficult, owing to the bad state of the roads.

First, a quarter of a pint of Grenache was given to each guest on sitting down, then "hot eschaudÉs, roast apples with white sugar-plums upon them, roasted figs, sorrel and watercress, and rosemary."

"Soups.--A rich soup, composed of six trout, six tenches, white herring, freshwater eels, salted twenty-four hours, and three whiting, soaked twelve hours; almonds, ginger, saffron, cinnamon powder and sweetmeats.

"Salt-Water Fish.--Soles, gurnets, congers, turbots, and salmon.

"Fresh-Water Fish.--Lux faudis (pike with roe), carps from the Marne, breams.

"Side-Dishes.--Lampreys À la boee, orange-apples (one for each guest), porpoise with sauce, mackerel, soles, bream, and shad À la cameline, with verjuice, rice and fried almonds upon them; sugar and apples.

"Dessert.--Stewed fruit with white and vermilion sugar-plums; figs, dates, grapes, and filberts.

"Hypocras for issue de table, with oublies and supplications.

"Wines and spices compose the baute-hors."

To this fasting repast we give by way of contrast the bill of fare at the nuptial feast of Master Helye, "to which forty guests were bidden on a Tuesday in May, a 'day of flesh.'"

"Soups.--Capons with white sauce, ornamented with pomegranate and crimson sweetmeats.

"Roasts.--Quarter of roe-deer, goslings, young chickens, and sauces of orange, cameline, and verjuice.

"Side-Dishes.--Jellies of crayfish and loach; young rabbits and pork.

"Dessert.--FroumentÉe and venison.

"Issue.--Hypocras.

"Boute-Hors.--Wine and spices."

The clever editor of the "MÉnagier de Paris," M. le Baron JerÔme Pichon, after giving us this curious account of the mode of living of the citizens of that day, thus sums up the whole arrangements for the table in the fourteenth century: "The different provisions necessary for food are usually entrusted to the squires of the kitchen, and were chosen, purchased, and paid for by one or more of these officials, assisted by the cooks. The dishes prepared by the cooks were placed, by the help of the esquires, on dressers in the kitchen until the moment of serving. Thence they were carried to the tables. Let us imagine a vast hall hung with tapestries and other brilliant stuffs. The tables are covered with fringed table-cloths, and strewn with odoriferous herbs; one of them, called the Great Table, is reserved for the persons of distinction. The guests are taken to their seats by two butlers, who bring them water to wash. The Great Table is laid out by a butler, with silver salt-cellars (Figs. 126 and 127), golden goblets with lids for the high personages, spoons and silver drinking cups. The guests eat at least certain dishes on tranchoirs, or large slices of thick bread, afterwards thrown into vases called couloueres (drainers). For the other tables the salt is placed on pieces of bread, scooped out for that purpose by the intendants, who are called porte-chappes. In the hall is a dresser covered with plate and various kinds of wine. Two squires standing near this dresser give the guests clean spoons, pour out what wine they ask for, and remove the silver when used; two other squires superintend the conveyance of wine to the dresser; a varlet placed under their orders is occupied with nothing but drawing wine from the casks." At that time wine was not bottled, and they drew directly from the cask the amount necessary for the day's consumption. "The dishes, consisting of three, four, five, and even six courses, called mets or assiettes, are brought in by varlets and two of the principal squires, and in certain wedding-feasts the bridegroom walked in front of them. The dishes are placed on the table by an assÉeur (placer), assisted by two servants. The latter take away the remains at the conclusion of the course, and hand them over to the squires of the kitchen who have charge of them. After the mets or assiettes the table-cloths are changed, and the entremets are then brought in. This course is the most brilliant of the repast, and at some of the princely banquets the dishes are made to imitate a sort of theatrical representation. It is composed of sweet dishes, of coloured jellies of swans, of peacocks, or of pheasants adorned with their feathers, having the beak and feet gilt, and placed on the middle of the table on a sort of pedestal. To the entremets, a course which does not appear on all bills of fare, succeeds the dessert. The issue, or exit from table, is mostly composed of hypocras and a sort of oublie called mestier; or, in summer, when hypocras is out of season on account of its strength, of apples, cheeses, and sometimes of pastries and sweetmeats. The boute-hors (wines and spices) end the repast. The guests then wash their hands, say grace, and pass into the chambre de parement or drawing-room. The servants then sit down and dine after their masters. They subsequently bring the guests wine and Épices de chambre, after which each retires home."

But all the pomp and magnificence of the feasts of this period would have appeared paltry a century later, when royal banquets were managed by Taillevent, head cook to Charles VII. The historian of French cookery, Legrand d'Aussy, thus desoribes a great feast given in 1455 by the Count of Anjou, third son of Louis II., King of Sicily:--

"On the table was placed a centre-piece, which represented a green lawn, surrounded with large peacocks' feathers and green branches, to which were tied violets and other sweet-smelling flowers. In the middle of this lawn a fortress was placed, covered with silver. This was hollow, and formed a sort of cage, in which several live birds were shut up, their tufts and feet being gilt. On its tower, which was gilt, three banners were placed, one bearing the arms of the count, the two others those of Mesdemoiselles de ChÂteaubrun and de Villequier, in whose honour the feast was given.

"The first course consisted of a civet of hare, a quarter of stag which had been a night in salt, a stuffed chicken, and a loin of veal. The two last dishes were covered with a German sauce, with gilt sugar-plums, and pomegranate seeds.... At each end, outside the green lawn, was an enormous pie, surmounted with smaller pies, which formed a crown. The crust of the large ones was silvered all round and gilt at the top; each contained a whole roe-deer, a gosling, three capons, six chickens, ten pigeons, one young rabbit, and, no doubt to serve as seasoning or stuffing, a minced loin of veal, two pounds of fat, and twenty-six hard-boiled eggs, covered with saffron and flavoured with cloves. For the three following courses, there was a roe-deer, a pig, a sturgeon cooked in parsley and vinegar, and covered with powdered ginger; a kid, two goslings, twelve chickens, as many pigeons, six young rabbits, two herons, a leveret, a fat capon stuffed, four chickens covered with yolks of eggs and sprinkled with powder de Duc (spice), a wild boar, some wafers (darioles), and stars; a jelly, part white and part red, representing the crests of the three above-mentioned persons; cream with Duc powder, covered with fennel seeds preserved in sugar; a white cream, cheese in slices, and strawberries; and, lastly, plums stewed in rose-water. Besides these four courses, there was a fifth, entirely composed of the prepared wines then in vogue, and of preserves. These consisted of fruits and various sweet pastries. The pastries represented stags and swans, to the necks of which were suspended the arms of the Count of Anjou and those of the two young ladies."

In great houses, dinner was announced by the sound of the hunting-horn; this is what Froissard calls corner l'assiette, but which was at an earlier period called corner l'eau, because it was the custom to wash the hands before sitting down to table as well as on leaving the dining-room.

For these ablutions scented water, and especially rose-water, was used, brought in ewers of precious and delicately wrought metals, by pages or squires, who handed them to the ladies in silver basins. It was at about this period, that is, in the times of chivalry, that the custom of placing the guests by couples was introduced, generally a gentleman and lady, each couple having but one cup and one plate; hence the expression, to eat from the same plate.

Historians relate that in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, at certain gala feasts, the dishes were brought in by servants in full armour, mounted on caparisoned horses; but this is a custom exclusively attached to chivalry. As early as those days, powerful and ingenious machines were in use, which lowered from the story above, or raised from that below, ready-served tables, which were made to disappear after use as if by enchantment.

At that period the table service of the wealthy required a considerable staff of retainers and varlets; and, at a later period, this number was much increased. Thus, for instance, when Louis of Orleans went on a diplomatic mission to Germany from his brother Charles VI., this prince, in order that France might be worthily represented abroad, raised the number of his household to more than two hundred and fifty persons, of whom about one hundred were retainers and table attendants. Olivier de la Marche, who, in his "MÉmoires," gives the most minute details of the ceremonial of the court of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, tells us that the table service was as extensive as in the other great princely houses.

This extravagant and ruinous pomp fell into disuse during the reigns of Louis XI., Charles VIII., and Louis XII., but reappeared in that of Francis I. This prince, after his first wars in Italy, imported the cookery and the gastronomic luxury of that country, where the art of good living, especially in Venice, Florence, and Rome, had reached the highest degree of refinement and magnificence. Henry II. and Francis II. maintained the magnificence of their royal tables; but after them, notwithstanding the soft effeminacy of the manners at court, the continued wars which Henry III. and Charles IX. had to sustain in their own states against the Protestants and the League necessitated a considerable economy in the households and tables of those kings.

"It was only by fits and starts," says BrantÔme, "that one was well fed during this reign, for very often circumstances prevented the proper preparation of the repasts; a thing much disliked by the courtiers, who prefer open table to be kept at both court and with the army, because it then costs them nothing." Henry IV. was neither fastidious nor greedy; we must therefore come down to the reign of Louis XIII. to find a vestige of the splendour of the banquets of Francis I.

From the establishment of the Franks in Gaul down to the fifteenth century inclusive, there were but two meals a day; people dined at ten o'clock in the morning, and supped at four in the afternoon. In the sixteenth century they put back dinner one hour and supper three hours, to which many people objected. Hence the old proverb:--

"Lever À six, dÎner À dix,
Souper À six, coucher À dix,
Fait vivre l'homme dix fois dix."

("To rise at six, dine at ten,
Sup at six, to bed at ten,
Makes man live ten times ten.")