_Paris, December 21, 1801._
If Paris affords a thousand enjoyments to the man of fortune, it may
truly be said that, without money, Paris is the most melancholy abode
in the world. Privations are then the more painful, because desires
and even wants are rendered more poignant by the ostentatious display
of every object which might satisfy them. What more cruel for an
unfortunate fellow, with an empty purse, than to pass by the kitchen
of a _restaurateur_, when, pinched by hunger, he has not the means of
procuring himself a dinner? His olfactory nerves being still more
readily affected when his stomach is empty, far from affording him a
pleasing sensation, then serve only to sharpen the torment which he
suffers. It is worse than the punishment of Tantalus, who, dying with
thirst, could not drink, though up to his chin in water.
Really, my dear friend, I would advise every rich epicure to fix his
residence in this city. Without being plagued by the details of
housekeeping, or even at the trouble of looking at a bill of fare, he
might feast his eye, and his appetite too, on the inviting plumpness
of a turkey, stuffed with truffles. A boar's head set before him,
with a Seville orange between its tusks, might make him fancy that he
was discussing the greatest interests of mankind at the table of an
Austrian Prime Minister, or British Secretary of State; while _pâtés_
of _Chartres_ or of _Périgord_ hold out to his discriminating palate
all the refinements of French seasoning. These, and an endless
variety of other dainties, no less tempting, might he contemplate
here, in walking past a _magazin de comestibles_ or
provision-warehouse.
Among the changes introduced here, within these few years, I had
heard much of the improvements in the culinary art, or rather in the
manner of serving up its productions; but, on my first arrival in
Paris, I was so constantly engaged in a succession of dinner-parties,
that some time elapsed before I could avail myself of an opportunity
of dining at the house of any of the fashionable