To gratify, at the same time, the taste for antiquity, which
he somehow supposed that his new guest possessed, he launched out in
commendation of the great artists of former days, particularly one
whom he had known in his youth, "Maitre de Cuisine to the Marechal
Strozzi--tres bon gentilhomme pourtant;" who had maintained his
master's table with twelve covers every day during the long and severe
blockade of le petit Leyth, although he had nothing better to place on
it than the quarter of a carrion-horse now and then, and the grass and
weeds that grew on the ramparts. "Despardieux c'dtoit un homme
superbe! With one tistle-head, and a nettle or two, he could make a
soupe for twenty guests--an haunch of a little puppy-dog made a roti
des plus excellens; but his coupe de maitre was when the rendition--
what you call the surrender, took place and appened; and then, dieu me
damme, he made out of the hind quarter of one salted horse, forty-five
couverts; that the English and Scottish officers and nobility, who had
the honour to dine with Monseigneur upon the rendition, could not tell
what the devil any of them were made upon at all.
The good wine had by this time gone so merrily round, and had such
genial effect on the guests, that those of the lower end of the table,
who had hitherto been listeners, began, not greatly to their own
credit, or that of the ordinary, to make innovations.
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