Martial glory was also represented
at that social gathering by a warrior, bronzed and decorated, lately
arrived from Algiers, on which arid soil he had achieved many laurels
and the rank of Colonel. Finance contributed Duplessis. Well it might;
for Duplessis had just assisted the host to a splendid coup at the
Bourse.

"Ah, cher Monsieur Savarin," says Enguerrand de Vandemar, whose
patrician blood is so pure from revolutionary taint that he is always
instinctively polite, "what a masterpiece in its way is that little
paper of yours in the 'Sens Commun,' upon the connection between the
national character and the national diet! so genuinely witty!--for wit
is but truth made amusing."

"You flatter me," replied Savarin, modestly; "but I own I do think there
is a smattering of philosophy in that trifle. Perhaps, however, the
character of a people depends more on its drinks than its food. The
wines of Italy, heady, irritable, ruinous to the digestion, contribute
to the character which belongs to active brains and disordered livers.
The Italians conceive great plans, but they cannot digest them. The
English common-people drink beer, and the beerish character is stolid,
rude, but stubborn and enduring. The English middle-class imbibe
port and sherry; and with these strong potations their ideas become
obfuscated. Their character has no liveliness; amusement is not one of
their wants; they sit at home after dinner and doze away the fumes of
their beverage in the dulness of domesticity. If the English aristocracy
are more vivacious and cosmopolitan, it is thanks to the wines of
France, which it is the mode with them to prefer; but still, like all
plagiarists, they are imitators, not inventors; they borrow our wines
and copy our manners. The Germans--"

"Insolent barbarians!" growled the French Colonel, twirling his
mustache; "if the Emperor were not in his dotage, their Sadowa would ere
this have cost them their Rhine."

"The Germans," resumed Savarin, unheeding the interruption, "drink acrid
wines, varied with beer, to which last their commonalty owes a quasi
resemblance in stupidity and endurance to the English masses. Acrid
wines rot the teeth Germans are afflicted with toothache from infancy.
All people subject to toothache are sentimental. Goethe was a martyr
to toothache. 'Werther' was written in one of those paroxysms which
predispose genius to suicide. But the German character is not all
toothache; beer and tobacco