248 THE COOKERY OF THE PHEASANT 



his South Sea bubbles, the taste for cookery became 

 not only a fashion but a rage. Louis XIV. had left the 

 finances in dire confusion. The national distress was 

 the opportunity of individuals. The old noblesse, drawn 

 from its domains to the Court, had been well-nigh 

 ruined in the race of extravagance. The financiers and 

 farmers-general had come to the front. They had 

 none of the refinement of the lavish Fouquet, and as 

 httle of the frugality of his supplanter Colbert. They 

 had to assert a place in society by vulgar ostentation. 

 They were much given to marrying well-born wives, 

 and the ill-matched spouses were mutually unfaithful. 

 The financiers, almost to a man, had their petiics 

 maisons and their mistresses, as well as their magni- 

 ficently furnished hotels. For the most part they kept 

 up double establishments of cooks, and they vied with 

 each other in repasts which were modelled on the 

 Roman profusion. But there were enthusiastic chefs 

 cherishing the traditions of Vatel, who had committed 

 suicide precipitately on a point of honour. When 

 they had talent or showed fair promise, they never 

 wanted an engagement nor the means of prose- 

 cuting their studies, for as they were the surest 

 stepping-stones of their employers, they had literally 

 carte blanche. And we get an idea of the resources 

 of their culinary genius from the story told by Hayward 



