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The Renaissance of Cookery: Montespan

Again, if we accept a reference of Albert Glatigny in one of his two airy poems on old Versailles, the term would appear to concern the Marquise de Montespan, who, as has already been stated, was a cook of no little merit: "Parfois le soir, au bras d'un militaire Vêtu d'azur, arrogant comme un paon, Un cordon-bleu passait avec mystère, Et l'on disait, ‘Louis et Montespan!" " (Sometimes at eve, on arm of cavalier Bedight in blue, like some proud peacock's van, A cordon-bleu pass'd by with mystic air, The while one said, "Louis and Montespan!") In order to captivate the affections of her royal master more readily, the Duchesse de Châteauroux secured the most versatile kitchener who was to be found; and the wily and beautiful Marquise de Pompadour, thinking that the surest way to a man's heart is through his stomach, created filets de volaille à la bellevue, palais de bœuf à la Pompadour, and tendrons d'aigneau à la soleil. But the Louis were proverbially fickle-there were fillettes as well as filets; and while these culinary novelties appealed to the jaded royal palate for the time, they failed to retain the royal affections or wrest the monarch from his life of dissipation.

The refinements of the science were lost upon Louis XVI, whose robust appetite needed only to be appeased by "pieces of resistance"-the art, nevertheless, continuing to flourish under the nobility, the wealthy financiers, and the ecclesiastics. New discoveries continued to be made, and the relation of cookery to man's psychical nature-the affinity of the spirit with the stomach-became more and more apparent. Thus it was observed by the Maréchal de Mouchy, who so valiantly defended the king when the palace was attacked by a mob, that the flesh of the pigeon possesses especial sedative or consoling virtues. It was accordingly his wont, whenever he had lost a relative or a friend, to say to his cook: "You will serve me with two roast pigeons for dinner; I have noticed that after eating a brace of pigeons I arise from the table feeling much more resigned." During the Revolution, when the court had ceased to exist and private establishments were no longer maintained, cookery necessarily languished for a period-to blossom anew in that familiar feature of the French capital, the restaurant. Internal dissension, in closing the hôtels of the wealthy, was thus the means of throwing numbers of master-cooks out of employment, who subsequently turned restaurateurs, and not a few of whom became millionaires. With the restaurants, the dealers in delicacies and provisions increased proportionately, and dining and good living advanced apace.