for a salaried appointment, ‘ Accord^ !’ We have seen an account of an interview which the King’s official taster of peaches, M. Petit Eadel, had with a peasant grower. From the history of the King’s fruit jury, of which this peach- taster was a member, may be judged the nature of the reign, which afflicted France, effected the felonious invasion of Spain, and caused even Chateaubriand to be disgusted at Cabinet councils, which sat mainly for the purpose of listen- ing to the King’s small jokes. During the fifteen years of the elder Bourbon rule, culinary science in France made no progress, notwithstanding the effort which was manifested by the publication of the second series of the ‘ Almanach des Gourmands.’ The July scrimmage of 1830 brought new life to France, and with it gastronomy assumed new forms, of which the reader can learn the details in D.D., p. 65. The Orleanist Government is described as one ‘ qui probable- ment avait de la sympathie pour les viveurs,’ for ‘ it ruled by truffles.’ The sympathies of Louis Philippe were enlisted for soups, which we know from the ‘ Almanach ’ were rapidly deteriorating ; he sometimes ate four plates full of different soups, and a fifth in which he had the others all mixed up. Perhaps if the soups had been better, he would have eaten a smaller volume, and ‘ Mr. Smith with his old woman ’ might never have crossed the Channel. The downfall of culinary art is characterized by the story of the man who engaged to eat a dinner of the value of 500 francs, and in this country by Soyer’s one hundred guinea dish produced for a banquet at York. Dumas be- lieved that he had assisted at ‘ the last supper of genius,’ and in a climax of vanity exclaimed, ‘ On mangera toujours, mais on he din era plus, et surtout on ne soupera plus.’ Notwithstanding, both dinners and suppers have survived, but people talk less transcendentalism about them. TFIE SPIRIT OF COOKER) 63.S CHAPTEB LIX. THE PHILOSOPHY OF DINNERS AND OF DINING. At various periods the ordar of dinners and feasts has been made the subject of social conventions. We have seen in the chapter on the historical literature of cookery that at the great dinners of the time of the Renaissance almost every dish constituted ‘ a course,’ and as there were from twelve to sixty dishes, a dinner lasted many hours. Sub- sequently dinners became agreeably simplified, the courses were subordinated to ‘ services,’ and the services were re- duced in number, first to four, then to three, and it is now proposed to confine a dinner to two so - called services. But this contraction from four to two services effects no difference in the actual dinner ; it only appears a little differently on the bill of fare. On the bills of our forefathers soup and fish constituted the first course ; entrees and joints the second ; game and sweets the third ; cheese and dessert were by some made a course, by others treated as an un- titled appendix. This was therefore a dinner of four courses^ and there was no question of service. The latter word is of French origin, and has really only a classifying or syste- matizing significance. Assume, as some extremists would have us do, that a dinner consisted of a single ‘ service,’ it would not thereby lose any of the typical kinds of dishes, which in our opinion are the true ‘ courses ’ of a dinner, and remain for our time at least pretty well immutable.

AI-modernized reading of the original text

for a salaried appointment, 'Accordé!'’ We have seen an account of an interview which the King’s official taster of peaches, M. Petit Radel, had with a peasant grower. From the history of the King’s fruit jury, of which this peachtaster was a member, may be judged the nature of the reign, which afflicted France, effected the felonious invasion of Spain, and caused even Chateaubriand to be disgusted at Cabinet councils, which sat mainly for the purpose of listening to the King’s small jokes. During the fifteen years of the elder Bourbon rule, culinary science in France made no progress, notwithstanding the effort which was manifested by the publication of the second series of the ‘ Almanach des Gourmands.’ The July revolution of 1830 brought new life to France, and with it gastronomy assumed new forms, of which the reader can learn the details in D.D., p. 65. The Orleanist Government is described as one ‘ qui probablement avait de la sympathie pour les viveurs,’ for ‘ it ruled by truffles.’ The sympathies of Louis Philippe were enlisted for soups, which we know from the ‘ Almanach ’ were rapidly deteriorating ; he sometimes ate four plates full of different soups, and a fifth in which he had the others all mixed up. Perhaps if the soups had been better, he would have eaten a smaller volume, and ‘ Mr. Smith with his old woman ’ might never have crossed the Channel. The downfall of culinary art is characterized by the story of the man who engaged to eat a dinner of the value of 500 francs, and in this country by Soyer’s one hundred guinea dish produced for a banquet at York. Dumas believed that he had assisted at ‘ the last supper of genius,’ and in a climax of vanity exclaimed, ‘ On mangera toujours, mais on he din era plus, et surtout on ne soupera plus.’ Notwithstanding, both dinners and suppers have survived, but people talk less transcendentalism about them. 635 CHAPTEB LIX. THE PHILOSOPHY OF DINNERS AND OF DINING. At various periods the ordar of dinners and feasts has been made the subject of social conventions. We have seen in the chapter on the historical literature of cookery that at the great dinners of the time of the Renaissance almost every dish constituted ‘ a course,’ and as there were from twelve to sixty dishes, a dinner lasted many hours. Subsequently dinners became agreeably simplified, the courses were subordinated to ‘ services,’ and the services were reduced in number, first to four, then to three, and it is now proposed to confine a dinner to two so - called services. But this contraction from four to two services effects no difference in the actual dinner ; it only appears a little differently on the bill of fare. On the bills of our forefathers soup and fish constituted the first course ; entrees and joints the second ; game and sweets the third ; cheese and dessert were by some made a course, by others treated as an untitled appendix. This was therefore a dinner of four courses^ and there was no question of service. The latter word is of French origin, and has really only a classifying or systematizing significance. Assume, as some extremists would have us do, that a dinner consisted of a single ‘ service,’ it would not thereby lose any of the typical kinds of dishes, which in our opinion are the true ‘ courses ’ of a dinner, and remain for our time at least pretty well immutable.

The spirit of cookery