&c.

[Illustration: Fig. 114.--Coppersmith, designed and engraved in the
Sixteenth Century by J. Amman.]

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 doree_,
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."

[Illustration: Fig. 115.--Kitchen and Table Uensils:--

1, Carving-knife (Sixteenth Century);
2, Chalice or Cup, with Cover (Fourteenth Century);
3, Doubled-handled Pot, in Copper (Ninth Century);
4, Metal Boiler, or Tin Pot, taken from "L'Histoire de la Belle Helaine"
(Fifteenth Century);
5, Knife (Sixteenth Century);
6, Pot, with Handles (Fourteenth Century);
7, Copper Boiler, taken from "L'Histoire de la Belle Helaine" (Fifteenth
Century);
8, Ewer, with Handle, in Oriental Fashion (Ninth Century);
9, Pitcher, sculptured, from among the Decorations of the Church of St.
Benedict, Paris (Fifteenth Century);
10, Two-branched Candlestick (Sixteenth Century);
11, Cauldron (Fifteenth Century).
]

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 Noel 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, t