30 COCOA AND CHOCOLATE. 



some to the fact that he was extravagantly fond of chocolate : by others 

 to his desire to please his confessor; and by others to his gallantry, a 

 queen having first introduced it into France. 



" The Spanish ladies of the New World, it is said, carried their love 

 for chocolate to such a degree that, not content with partaking of it 

 several times a day, they had it sometimes carried after them to church. 

 This favoring of the senses often drew upon them the censures of the 

 bishop ; but the Reverend Father Escobar, whose metaphysics were as 



subtle as his morality 

 w a s accommodating, 

 declared, formally, that 

 a fast was not broken 

 by chocolate prepared 

 with water : thus wire- 

 drawing, in favor of his 

 penitents, the ancient 

 adage, ^Liquidum non 

 fra ngit jejn n in ;;/.'" 

 Chocolate appears 



COOLING ROOM, WALTER BAKER & CO's MILLS. 



to have been highly 



valued as a remedial agent by the leading physicians of that day. 

 Christoph Ludwig Hoffmann wrote a treatise entitled " Potus Choco- 

 late," in which he recommended it in many diseases, and instanced the 

 case of Cardinal Richelieu, who, he stated, was cured of general 

 atrophy by its use. 



The earliest intimation of the introduction of cocoa into England is 

 found in an announcement in the Public Advertiser of Tuesday, June 

 16, 1657 (more than a hundred and thirty years after its introduction 

 into Spain), stating that " In Bishopsgate Street, in Queen's Head 

 Alley, at a Frenchman's house, is an excellent West India drink, called 

 chocolate, to be sold, where you may have it ready at any time : and 

 also unmade, at reasonable rates." 



