THE COOKERY OF THE PHEASANT 249 



in ' The Art of Dining,' of Bertrand, the artiste of the 

 Prince de Soubise. The <r/^e/' had presented the menu 

 for a supper, and one of the items was fifty hams. 

 Naturally the Prince objected, and protested that he 

 did not mean to feast his regiment. The wounded 

 chef exclaimed with dignity, ' Monseigneur, you do 

 not understand our resources. Give the word, and 

 those fifty hams which astound you shall be put 

 into a bottle no bigger than my thumb.' Then he 

 condescended to explain, that forty-nine of the hams 

 had been used for stock, dressings, or sauces. 



The story gives a good idea of the way in which 

 the cooks of the financiers went to work. From their 

 day the pheasant ceased to be a simple roti, to be 

 simmered down into z. puree, or to be sent up smothered 

 in truffles. Their ingenuity devised, more or less in 

 the rough, many of the elaborate refinements in way 

 of entrees which have now become common-places 

 of the cookery books. Louis XV. did not let 

 the practice of the little suppers languish. It was 

 he, or his boon companion Richeheu, who used to 

 gravitate between the Bastille and Versailles, who 

 is said to have invented the flying tables, although, 

 indeed, the idea was borrowed from the Romans. 

 These tables had the obvious advantage of dispensing 

 with the'presence of embarrassing servants, and they 



