f the
fumes of Burgundy, and the savoury odour of rich dishes, that she
meditated the means of quelling a dangerous faction, or the destruction
of a man, who disturbed her repose. It was during dinner she had an
interview with the Duke of Alba, with whom she resolved on the massacre
of St. Bartholomew.

Not long after the massacre of St. Bartholomew the throne was occupied
by Henry de Valois, brother to Charles the Ninth, and son of Catherine.
He was a prince of good appetite, a lover of wine and good cheer,
qualities which his mother had carefully fostered and cultivated, that
she alone might hold the reigns of government. Henry de Valois spent
whole days at table, and the constellations of the kitchen shone with
the greatest splendour under this gourmand king. We date from the
beginning of his reign the invention of the fricandeau, generally
attributed to a Swiss. Now the fricandeau having its Columbus, its
discovery appears not more wonderful than that of America, and yet
it required _une grande force de tete_.

Though we acknowledge the immense influence this monarch had over
cookery, we must not conceal that he brought in fashion aromatic sauces,
tough macaroni, cullises, and brown sauces calcined by a process like
that of roasted coffee. These sauces gave the dishes a corrosive
acidity, and as Jourdan le Cointe remarks, far from nourishing the body,
communicated to it a feverish sensation, which baffled all the skill of
physicians, in their attempts to cure it. They were positive poisons
which the Italians had introduced into France, a taste for which spread
through every class of society.

Under the reign of Henry III. a taste for warm drinks was joined to
that of spicy dishes. Hippocrates recommends hot water in fevers,
Avicenna in consumption, Trallien in phrensy, Plato in loathings, Aetius
in strangury,--whence we conclude that warm water, having so many
different qualities, must have been a very useful article at table, had
it only been to assist digestion, considering that people ate copiously
in the reign of the Valois. They made not one single repast without a
jug full of hot water, and even wine was drunk lukewarm.

If the poor have preserved the memory of Henry IV., we cannot say as
much of his cooks. That monarch did nothing for them;--either Nature
had not endowed him with a good appetite, (for what prince ever was
perfect,) or he looked upon them, as, in the last century, we looked
upon soups, as