Part 35

Jermann describes the imperial kitchen at St. Petersburg as good, delicate, and “meagre,”--the latter being a consequence of the continual eating that is going on, and the necessity which follows of providing what is light of digestion. The imperial household tables in the days of Paul were divided into “stations,” an arrangement which took its rise from a singular incident. The late empress, like our own Queen Adelaide, was given to inspect the “domestic accounts,” and she was puzzled by finding among them “a bottle of rum” daily charged to the Naslednik, or heir apparent! Her imperial Majesty turned over the old “expenses” of the household, to discover at what period her son had commenced this reprobate course of daily rum-drinking; and found, if not to her horror, at least to the increase of her perplexity, that it dated from the very day of his birth. The “bottle of rum” began with the baby, accompanied the boy, and continued to be charged to the man. He was charged as drinking upwards of thirty dozen of fine old Jamaica yearly! The imperial mother was anxious to discover if any other of the Czarovitch babies had exhibited the same alcoholic precocity; and it appears that they were all alike; daily, for upwards of a century back, they stood credited in the household books for that terrible “bottle of rum.” The empress continued her researches with the zeal of an antiquary, and her labours were not unrewarded. She at last reached the original entry. Like all succeeding ones, it was to the effect of “a bottle of rum for the Naslednik;” but a sort of editorial note on the margin of the same page intimated the wherefore: “On account of violent toothache, a teaspoonful with sugar to be given, by order of the physician of the imperial court.” The teaspoonful for one day had been charged as a bottle, and the entry once made, it was kept on the books to the profit of the unrighteous steward, until discovery checked the fraud,--a fraud, more gigantically amusing than that of the illiterate coachman, who set down in his harness-room book, “Two penn’orth of whipcord, 6_d._” The empress showed the venerable delinquency to her husband, Paul; and _he_, calculating what the temporary toothache of the imperial baby Alexander had cost him, was affrighted at the outlay, and declared that he would revolutionise the kitchen department, and put himself out to board. The threat was not idly made, and it was soon seriously realized. A gastronomic contractor was found who farmed the whole palace, and did his spiriting admirably. He divided the imperial household into “stations.” The first was the monarch’s especial table, for the supply of which he charged the emperor and empress fifty roubles each daily; the table of the archdukes and archduchesses was supplied at half that price; the guests of that table, of whatever rank, were served at the same cost. The ladies and gentlemen of the household had a “station,” which was exceedingly well provisioned, at twenty roubles each. The graduated sliding scale continued to descend in proportion to the _status_ of the feeders. The upper servants had superior stomachs, which were accounted of as being implacable at less than fifteen roubles each. Servants in livery, with finer lace but coarser digestions, dieted daily at five roubles each; and the grooms and scullions were taken altogether at three roubles a head. “A wonderful change,” says Jermann, “ensued in the whole winter palace. The emperor declared he had never dined so well before. The court, tempted by the more numerous courses, sat far longer at table. The maids of honour got fresh bloom upon their cheeks, and the chamberlains and equerries rounder faces; and most flourishing of all was the state of the household expenses, although these diminished by one-half. In short, every one, save cook and butler, was content; and all this was the result of ‘a bottle of rum,’ from which the Emperor Alexander, when heir to the crown, had been ordered by the physician to take a spoonful for the toothache.”

Herr Jermann, who was manager of the imperial company of German actors in St. Petersburg, frequently dined at the table of the “second station,” or officials’ table. There were six dishes and a capital dessert. He describes the “drinkables” as consisting of one bottle of red and one of white wine, two bottles of beer, one of kislitschi, and quass _ad libitum_. The dinner he speaks lightly of, as inferior on the point of cookery to that of the best restaurants in the capital. The wine was a light Burgundy; the beer heavy and Russian. The kislitschi must have been a powerful crusher of the appetite, it being a sour-sweet drink, prepared from honey, water, lemon-juice, and a decoction of herbs. Quass is a plain, cheap beverage, the better sort of which is extracted from malt, while an inferior sort is an extract of bread-crusts. It is the national drink of the lower orders. A stranger finds it at first detestable; but he not only soon becomes reconciled to it, but generally prefers it to any other beverage, especially in the brief scorching summer of St. Petersburg, when the cooling properties of quass are its great recommendation.

To talk of the fierceness of a Russian summer seems paradoxical, but it is simple truth; and probably the court of Naples itself, throughout its long season of heat, does not consume so much ice as their imperial Muscovite majesties do in the course of their slow-to-come, quick-to-go, and sharp-while-it-lasts summer. Nay, the whole capital eats ice at this season. Ice is thought such a “necessary” of life, that the first question in taking a house is, probably, touching the quality and capability of the ice-cellar, wherein they pack away as much of the Neva as they can in solid blocks. They eat it and drink it, surround their larders with it, and mix it with the water, beer, quass--in short, with whatever they drink. Nay, more, when there is a superabundance of the material, they place it under their beds and on their stoves to cool their apartments. So tremendous is the dust and heat of a Russian summer, that, for inconvenience, it is only the opposite extreme of annoyance to that experienced in the wintry visitations of frost. The ice-tubs of the popular vendors in the streets are enveloped and covered with wet cloths, to protect them from the heat of the sun. I need not say that this is _not_ the season at which a visitor should resort to the capital. St. Petersburg in January, and Naples in July, are the respective times and places to be observed by those who can bear the consequences.

I do not know what may be the case with regard to the fruit eaten at the imperial table; but, generally speaking, fruit is never eaten by a Russian until it has been blest by a priest. Jermann, alluding to this custom, praises it on sanitary grounds, for, he says, the fruit has no chance of earning a benediction unless it be ripe; but if it then be taken to church, the blessing is granted with much attendant solemnity.

I do not believe that the czars were ever accustomed to dine in such state as the kaisers. The old emperors of Germany, on state occasions, were waited on at dinner by the two happy feudatory princes of the empire. On one of these occasions, we are told that old General Dalzell, the terrible enemy of the Scottish Covenanters, was invited to dine with the kaiser, and the prince-waiter nearest to him in attendance was no less a personage than the Prince of Modena, head of the house of Este. Some years afterwards, the Duke of York (James II.) invited Dalzell to dine with himself and Mary of Modena. That proud lady, however, made some show of reluctance to sit down _en famille_ with the old general; but the latter lowered her pride by telling her, that he was not unacquainted with the greatness of the princes of Modena, and that the last time he had sat at table with the Emperor of Germany, a prince of that house was standing in attendance behind the emperor’s chair.

There were other good points about Dalzell’s character; in proof of which may be cited his dining with Dundas, an old Covenanting Scotch laird, who would _not_ forego his long prayers before dinner, and who especially prayed that Dalzell and his royal master might have their hard hearts softened towards the Covenanting children of the Lord. When the prayer was ended, and dinner about to begin, Dalzell complimented his host on his courage in fearing man less than God. The anecdote reminds me of one in connexion with a dinner given by a gentleman of one of our “Protestant denominations,” in honour of the presence of a new minister and his bride. Prayer preceded the repast, and it was given by the host, who, introducing therein the welcomed strangers, said, “We thank thee, O Lord, that thou hast conducted hither in safety thy servants, our new minister and his wife. It is thou, O Lord, who preservest both man and beast!” This was more like a kick than a compliment; but it only called up a smile on the pretty features of the minister’s lady.

Let us now cross the Atlantic, with Cortez and his companions, and contemplate Montezuma in his household and at his table. Barbarian as the Spanish invaders accounted him to be, he was superior in many respects to most of his royal contemporaries in Europe. He was not less magnificent than Solomon, and he was far more cleanly than Louis XIV.

On the terraced roof of his palace, thirty knights could tilt at each other, without complaining of want of space. His armouries were filled with weapons almost as destructive as any to be found in the arsenals of civilized Christian kings. His granaries were furnished with provisions paid by tributaries; three hundred servants tended the beautiful birds of his aviaries; his menageries were the wonder and terror of beholders; and his dwarfs were more hideous, and his ladies more dazzling, than potentate had ever before looked upon with contempt or admiration. His palace within and without was a marvel of Aztec art. It was surrounded by gardens, glad with fountains and gay flowers. One thousand ladies shared the retirement of this splendid locality, with a master more glittering than anything by which he was environed,--who changed his apparel four times daily, never putting on again a garment he had once worn, and who, eating off and drinking from gold, (except on state occasions, when his table was covered with services of Cholulan porcelain,) never used a second time the vessels which had once ministered to the indulgence of his appetite.

It is said eulogistically of his cooks, that they had thirty different ways of preparing meat,--a poor boast, perhaps, compared with that of the Parisian _chefs_, who have six hundred and eighty-five ways to dress eggs! Three hundred dishes were daily placed before the monarch; and such as were required to be kept hot at table were in heated earthenware stands made for the purpose. And it is even asserted, that this autocrat occasionally killed time before dinner by watching the cooking of his viands, a practice in which, according to Peter Pinder, that honest old English king used to indulge, who dined off boiled mutton at two, and to whom the funniest sight in the world was the clown in a pantomime swallowing carrots.

The ordinary dishes of Montezuma consisted of very dainty fare; namely, domestic fowls, geese, partridges, quails, venison, Indian hogs, pigeons, hares, rabbits, and other productions of his country, including--it is alleged by some and denied by others--some very choice dairy-fed baby, when this choice article happened to be in season! In cold weather enormous torches, that flung forth not only light but warmth and aromatic odours, lent additional splendour to the scene; and to temper at once the glare and the heat, screens with deliciously droll devices upon them, framed in gold, were placed before the brilliant flame.

The sovereign sat, like his links, also protected by a screen. He was not as barbarous as the most Christian kings of France, who fed in public; nor was he personally tended like them by awkward Ganymedes of a middle age. Four Hebes stood by the low throne and table of their master, and these poured water on his hands, and offered him the napkin, white as driven snow, or as the cloth on which the four hundred dishes stood waiting his attention. Women as fair presented him with bread; but even these fair ministers retired a few steps, when his sacred majesty addressed himself to the common process of eating. Then a number of ancient but sprightly nobles took their place. With these Montezuma conversed; and, when he was particularly pleased with a sage observation or a sprightly remark, a plate of pudding bestowed by the royal hand made one individual happy, and all his fellows bitterly jealous. The pudding, or whatever the dish might be, was eaten in silent reverence; and while an Aztec emperor was at meat, no one in the palace dared, at peril of his life, speak above his breath. Montezuma is described as being but a moderate eater, but fond of fruits, and indulging, with constraint upon his appetite, in certain drinks which were of a stimulating quality, such as are found in countries where civilization and luxury are at their highest.

“One thing I forgot, and no wonder,” says Bernal Diaz, “to mention in its place, and that is, during the time Montezuma was at dinner, two very beautiful women were busily employed making small cakes, with eggs and other things mixed therein. These were delicately white, and when made, they presented them to him on plates covered with napkins. Also, another kind of bread was brought to him on long leaves, and plates of cakes resembling wafers. After he had dined, they presented to him three little canes, highly ornamented, containing liquid amber, mixed with a herb they call tobacco; and when he had sufficiently viewed and heard the singers, dancers, and buffoons, he took a little of the smoke of one of those canes, and then laid himself down to sleep. The meal of the monarch ended, all his guards and attendants sat down to dinner, and, as near as I could judge, about a thousand plates of those eatables that I have mentioned, were laid before them, with vessels of foaming chocolate, and fruit in immense quantities. For his women and various inferior servants, his establishment was of a prodigious expense, and we were astonished, amid such a profusion, at the vast regularity that prevailed.”

What a contrast with the meal of this splendid barbarian is that of princes of the same complexion, but of different race, the Arab! We may fittingly include among sovereigns those Arab princes whose word, if it be not heeded far, is promptly obeyed within the little circle of their rule. Skins on the ground serve for table-cloths; the dishes are, in their contents, only the reflection of each other, and in the centre of the array whole lambs or sheep lie boiled or roasted. The chief and his followers dine in successive relays of company. Sometimes the skin is spread before the door of the tent, whether in a street or in the plain, and the passers-by, even to the beggars, invited with a “Bismillah,” In God’s name, fall to; and having eaten, exclaim, “Hamdallilah!” God be praised! and go their way.

Not less may we include, in the roll of Majesty at Meat, those Pilgrim Fathers who were the pioneers of civilization and liberty in America. Scant indeed was the table of that “sovereign people,” until they found security to sow seed, and reap the harvest in something like peace. The first meal which they enjoyed, after long months of labour, disease, and famine, was when they had constructed the little fort at Plymouth, behind which they might eat in safety and thankfulness. “The captain,” says Mr. Bartlett, in his “Pilgrim Fathers,” “had brought with him ‘a very fat goose,’ and those on shore had ‘a fat crane, and a mallard,’ and ‘a dried neat’s tongue.’ This fare was, no doubt, washed down with good English beer and strong waters; and thus, notwithstanding the gloom that hung over them, the day passed cheerfully and sociably away.” Such was the first official dinner of the “majesty of the people” beyond the Atlantic.

And having got to the “majesty of the people,” I am reminded of a “popular majesty,” the citizen king, Louis Philippe. He was a monarch economically minded, and kept the most modest yet not worst furnished of tables. His family often sate down before he arrived, detained as he often was by state affairs. When all rose as he quietly entered the dining-room, his stereotyped phrase was, “Que personne ne se dérange pour moi,” and therewith ensued as little ceremony as when “William Smith” and his household sate down to an uncrowned dinner at the little inn at Newhaven.

They who are curious to see how admirably Louis Philippe was constituted for making a poor-law commissioner, or a parochial relieving overseer, should peruse the graphic biography of the king written by Alexander Dumas. Therein is a list, made out by the monarch, of what he thought was sufficient for the table of the princes and princesses; and Louis of Orleans condescends to name the number of plates of soup, or cups of coffee, that he deemed sufficient for the requirement and support of the younger branches of his house. It shows that the soul of a crafty “gargottier” was in the body of the citizen king. But we have not yet contemplated the appearance and behaviour of our own sovereigns at table, out of respect for whom we now allot a chapter, but a brief one, to themselves.

ENGLISH KINGS AT THEIR TABLES.

The utilitarians of history have declared that half our treasured incidents of story are myths. Rufus was not slain by Sir Walter Tyrrell; Richard III. was a marvellously proper man; and the young princes were not smothered in the Tower. They have laid their hands on our legends, as Augustus did his on the nose of the dead Alexander, and with the same effect,--under the touch it crumbled into dust. The infidels refuse even to have faith in that table trait of Alfred, which showed him making cakes, or rather marring them, in the neatherd’s cottage. Mr. Wilkie may have prettily painted the incident, but its existence, anywhere but on canvas and in the poet’s brain, they ruthlessly deny. I do not know but that they are right.

We march into the bowels of more trustworthy ground, when we pass the frontier of the Roman period. William the Norman we know had a huge appetite for venison; and the Saxon chronicler says, that he loved the “high deer” as if he had been their father, which is but an equivocal compliment to his paternal affection. His table indulgences cost the life of hundreds, and the ruin of tens of hundreds. It brought on corpulency; his corpulency begot a poor joke in Philip of France; and of this joke was born such wrath in the soul of William, that he carried fire and sword into that kingdom, and was cut short in his career, ere he had accomplished the full measure of his revenge.

Rufus was as fat as his father, and as majestic both in his oaths and his appetites. To every passion he yielded himself a slave; and he feasted, like so many who would affect to be disgusted at his dishonesty, without troubling himself as to who “suffered.” He never paid a creditor whom he could cheat; and again, like many of the same class, he was most affable at table; his drinking companions were on an equality with him; and in such fellowship, over gross food and huge goblets mantling to the brim, he cut unclean jokes on his own unclean deeds, at which his servile and drunken hearers roared consumedly, and swore he was a god. There was some grandeur in his ideas, however, for he built Westminster Hall, as a vestibule to a palace, wherein he intended to hold high revel such as the world had never seen; and a vestibule it has now become, but to a palace wherein sits a different sort of dignity to that dreamed of by the low-statured, fat, fierce, and huge feeding Rufus.

All the Norman kings were fearful objects at which to fling jokes; and the appetite of Henry I. was ruined, and his sanguinary ire aroused, by a derisive passage in a poem by Luke de Barré. The king made the table shake as he declared that he would let wretched versifiers know what they were to expect if they offended the King of England; and Barré suffered the loss of his eyes. Henry ate and drank none the less joyously for the dead. But _Beauclerc_ was a more refined _gastronome_ than his brothers, as befitted his name; and though in many respects his court was horribly licentious, yet when he went from one demesne to another, to consume its revenues upon the spot, the feasting there seems to have been attended by as much moderation as merriment.

Stephen had more to do with fighting than feasting, and with keeping castles rather than cooks; but he knew how to gain allies by the fine science of giving dinners, and there was no more courteous host than he. While the king and the barons kept high mirth, however, the people were in the lowest misery. While the king gave political feasts, his subjects were perishing of starvation by thousands.

His successor, the Second Henry, was but a poor patron of cooks, as was to be expected of a monarch who had continually to defend himself against the rebellions, not only of subjects, but of his own children. Of the latter, the only one who loved him was his natural son Geoffrey. It is no wonder that this melancholy king was the first to do away with the old custom of having a coronation dinner thrice every year, on assembling the States at the three great festivals. He was ever in the midst of affrays; and once he fell among a body of monks, who checked their turbulence to complain to the king; their complaint being that their abbot, the Bishop of Winchester, had cut off three dishes from their table. “How many has he left you?” said the king. “Good heavens!” said the monks, “he has only left us ten.” “Ten!” said the monarch; “I am content with but three; and I hope your bishop will reduce you to a level with your king.” They, of course, were highly disgusted at the remark.

Richard Cœur de Lion, that copper monarch, was too busy with mischief to have leisure for much banqueting; but he loved one thing, and that was venison, the poor stealers of which he punished by the most horrible of mutilations. In his reign, an ox and a horse cost four shillings each; a sow was to be bought for a shilling; a sheep with fine wool, for tenpence, and with coarse wool, for sixpence; so that, taking into account the difference in the valuation of money, people who _had_ the money to purchase with, could procure mutton and pork at a rate about a dozen times cheaper than the same articles can be procured at now. The sovereign did not trouble himself about paying anybody; and when he gave a banquet, the very last thing he thought of was whether it were ever paid for or not.

Richard had no virtue but courage; and John resembled his worthless brother in every thing _but_ courage. He had the same love for venison; and a joke at dinner upon a fat haunch, which he said had come from a noble beast that had never heard mass, was looked upon by the clerical gentlemen present as a reflection upon their corpulency. They never forgot it; and it was, perhaps, partly a consequence of their retentive memory, that the monks of Swineshead poisoned the dish of which the king partook on the occasion of almost his last dinner. He certainly never _enjoyed_ another.