Ha! this is the "carte."

"Allons faire petit souper."

"Cotelettes d'Agneau."

"Maionnaise d'homard."

"Perdreaux rouges aux truffes--mark that, aux truffes."

"Gelee au maraschin."

"And the wine, sir," said the waiter, with a look of approval at my
selection, "Champagne--no other wine, sir?"

"No," said I, "Champagne only. Frappe de glace, of course," I added, and
the waiter departed with a bow that would have graced St. James's.

As long as our immaterial and better part shall be doomed to keep company
with its fleshy tabernacle, with all its attendant miseries of gout and
indigestion, how much of our enjoyment in this world is dependent upon
the mere accessory circumstances by which the business of life is carried
on and maintained, and to despise which is neither good policy nor sound
philosophy. In this conclusion a somewhat long experience of the life of
a traveller has fully established me. And no where does it press more
forcibly upon the mind than when first arrived in a continental inn,
after leaving the best hotels of England still fresh in your memory. I
do not for a moment dispute the very great superiority in comfort of the
latter, by which I would be understood to mean all those resemblances to
one's own home which an English hotel so eminently possesses, and every
other one so markedly wants; but I mean that in contrivances to elevate
the spirit, cheer the jaded and tired wayfarer by objects which, however
they may appeal to the mere senses, seem, at least, but little sensual,
give me a foreign inn; let me have a large spacious saloon, with its
lofty walls and its airy, large-paned windows, (I shall not object if the
cornices and mouldings be gilded, because such is usually the case,)--let
the sun and heat of a summer's day come tempered through the deep
lattices of a well-fitting "jalousie," bearing upon them the rich incense
of a fragrant orange tree in blossom--and the sparkling drops of a
neighbouring fountain, the gentle plash of which is faintly audible amid
the hum of the drone-bee--let such be the "agremens" without--while
within, let the more substantial joys of the table await, in such guise
as only a French cuisine can present them--give me these, I say, and I
shall never sigh for the far-famed and long-deplored comforts of a box in
a coffee-room, like a pew in a parish church, though certainly not so
well cushioned, and fully as dull, with a hot waiter and a cold
beefsteak--t