Luxury - Gluttony: Two of the Seven Cardinal Sins

"And I realise that in my specialty I am at the height of this noble and patriotic mission!" exclaimed the canon, with enthusiasm. "You give me, dear doctor, the consciousness of duty performed."

"I did not expect less from the loftiness of your soul, my lord canon," replied the physician, "but a day will come when this kind mission of consumer that you accept with such proud interest will be more generally disseminated, and we will talk of that another time, but before passing on to the next stall I must ask your indulgence for my poor nephew Leonard, who presides at the exhibition you are going to see."

"Why my indulgence, doctor?"

"Because, you see, my nephew Leonard follows a rather dangerous calling, but he has followed the bent of his inclination. This devil of a boy has been reared like a savage. Put to nurse with a peasant woman living on the frontier of the forest of Sénart, he was so puny for a long time that I allowed him to remain in the country until he was twelve years old. The peasant woman's husband was an arrant poacher, and my nephew had his bump for the chase as well developed as a hunting hound. You can judge what his bloodhound propensities would become under the tutelage of such a foster-parent. At the age of six years, sickly as he was, Leonard passed the whole day in the woods, busy with traps for rabbits, hares, and pheasants. At ten years the little man inaugurated his career as a hunter by killing a superb roebuck, one winter night, by the light of the moon. I was ignorant of all that. When, however, he was twelve years old, he seemed to have grown strong enough, and I placed him at school. Three days after, he scaled the walls which surrounded the boarding-school and returned to the forest of Sénart. In a word, canon, nothing has been able to conquer the boy's passion for hunting. And, unfortunately, I confess that I became an accomplice by making him a present of a newly invented gun, so perfect and handy that it would make of you, my dear abbé, as accomplished a hunter as my nephew. He is not alone. Thousands of families live upon the superfluous game of rich proprietors who hunt, not from necessity, but because they find it an amusement. So, my lord canon, in tasting a leg of jerked venison, a hash of young partridge, or a thigh of roasted pheasant, — I could not do you the wrong of supposing you would prefer the wing, — you can assure yourself that you are contributing to the support of a number of poor households."

CHAPTER XIII

The doctor, having concluded his eulogy upon the chase, approached his nephew's stall, and, with a significant gesture, pointed out to the canon and the abbé the finest exhibition of game that could be imagined.

The English gamekeepers, great masters of the art of grouping game, thus making real pictures of dead nature, would have recognised the superiority of Leonard.

Imagine a knotty, umbrageous tree six or seven feet high, standing in the middle of this stall. At the foot of the tree were grouped, on a bed of bright green fern, a young wild boar, a magnificent fallow deer, two years old, the proper age for venison, and two fine roebucks. These animals were lying in a restful position, the head gently bent over the shoulder, as if they were in their accustomed haunts in the depths of the forest. Long flexible branches of ivy fell from the lower boughs of the tree, among whose glossy leaves could be seen hares and rabbits, alternating with the wild geese of ashen-gray colour, wild ducks with green heads and feathers tipped with white, pheasants with scarlet eyes and necks of changeable blue and plumage shining like burnished copper; and silver-coloured bustards, a bird of passage quite rare in our climate. Here and there, branches of holly with purple berries, and the rosy bloom of heather mingled gracefully with the game disposed at different heights. Then came groups of woodcocks, gray partridges, red partridges, gold-coloured plovers, water-hens as black as ebony, with yellow beaks; upon the highest boughs the most delicate game was suspended, — quails, thrushes, fig-peckers, and rails, those kings of the plain; and finally, at the top of the tree, a magnificent heath-cock, caught, no doubt, in the mountains of Ardennes, seemed to open his broad wings of brown, touched with blue, and hover over this hecatomb of game.

Leonard, an agile, slender lad with a fawn-coloured eye, and frank, resolute face, contemplated his work with admiration, giving here and there a finishing touch, contrasting the red of a partridge with the green branch of a juniper-tree, or the shining ebony of a water-hen with the bright rose of the heather bloom.

"I have informed these gentlemen of your frightful trade, my bad boy," said Doctor Gasterini to his nephew Leonard, with a smile. "My lord canon and the saintly abbé will pray for the salvation of your soul."

"Oh, oh, my good uncle!" replied Leonard, good-naturedly, "I would rather have them pray for success in shooting the two finest deer, as company for the wild boar I have killed, whose head and fillets I present to you, uncle."

"Alas, alas, he is incorrigible!" said Doctor Gasterini, "and unhappily, my lord canon, you have no idea of the deliciousness of the flavour peculiar to the minced fillets and properly stuffed head of a year-old wild boar, seasoned à la Saint Hubert! Ah, my dear canon, how rich, how juicy! It was right to put this divine dish under the protection of the patron saint of the chase. But let us pass on," continued the doctor, preceding Dom Diégo, who was fascinated and dazzled by a display entirely novel to him, for such wealth of game is unknown in Spain.

"Oh, how grand is Nature in her creations!" said the canon; "what a marvellous scale of pleasures for the palate from the monstrous wild boar to the fig-pecker, — that exquisite little bird! Glory, glory to thee, eternal gratitude to thee," added he, in the manner of an ejaculatory prayer.

"Bravo, Dom Diégo!" cried the doctor, "now are you in the right."

"Now he is in materialism, in paganism, and the grossest pantheism," said the intractable abbé. "You will damn him, doctor, you will destroy his soul!"

"Still a little patience, my dear abbé," replied the doctor, walking toward another stall. "Soon, in spite of yourself, you will be convinced that I speak truly in extolling the excellence of gluttony, or rather you will think as I do, although you will take occasion to deny the evidence. Now, canon, you are going to see how this gluttony, so dear to you and me, becomes one of the causes of the progress of agriculture, the real basis of the prosperity of the country. And with this subject let me introduce to you my nephew Mathurin, a tiller of those salt meadows, which nourish the only beasts worthy of the gourmand, and which give him those invaluable legs of mutton, those unsurpassed cutlets, those fillets of wonderful beef which even England envies us. I present to you also my nephew Mathurin's wife, native of Le Mans, and familiar with that illustrious school of fattening animals, which produces those pullets and capons known as one of the glories and riches of France."

The shop of farmer Mathurin was undeniably less picturesque, less pretty, and by no means so showy as the others, but it had, by way of compensation, an attractive and dignified simplicity.

Upon large screens of willow branches, covered with thyme, sage, rosemary, tarragon, and other aromatic herbs, were displayed, in Herculean size, monstrous pieces of beef for roasting, fabulous sirloins, marvellous loins of veal, and those legs and saddles of mutton, and unparalleled cutlets, which have filled the hundred mouths of Rumour with the incomparable flavour of the famous beasts of the salt meadows.

Although raw, this delicious meat, surrounded with sweet and pungent herbs, was so delicate and of such a tempting red with its fat of immaculate whiteness, that the glances which Dom Diégo threw upon these specimens of bovine and ovine industry, were nothing less than carnivorous. Half hidden among clusters of water-cresses was a collection of pullets, capons, pure India cocks, and a species of fowl called tardillons, so round and fat and plump, and with a satin skin of such delicacy, that more than one pretty woman might have envied them.

"Oh, how pretty they are! how lovely they are!" stammered the canon. "Oh, it is enough to make one lose his head!"

"Ah, my dear canon," said the doctor, "pray, what will you say when the charming pallor of these pullets will turn into gold by the fires of the turnspit? when, distended almost to breaking by truffles made bluish under their delicate epidermis, this satin skin becomes rosy until it sheds the tear-drops of purple juice, watered by the slow distillation of its fat, as exquisitely delicate as the fat of a quail."

"Enough, doctor!" cried the canon, excited, "enough, I pray you, of braving scandal. I will attack one of those adorable pullets, without the least respect to its present condition."

"Calm yourself, my Lord Dom Diégo," said the doctor, smiling, "the dinner hour approaches and you can then pay your homage to two sisters of these adorable fowls."

Then, addressing his nephew Mathurin, the doctor said:

"My boy, these gentlemen think the produce of your farm very wonderful."

"The gentlemen are very kind, dear uncle," replied Mathurin, "but it is the cattle of one who chooses and loves the work! I do not fear the English or the Ardennois, upon the flavour of my beef, my veal, or my mutton from the salt meadows which make my reputation and my fortune. Because, you see, gentlemen, the prime object of agriculture is to make food, as we say. The cattle produce the manure, the manure the pasture, the pasture the fertility of the earth, and the fertility of the earth gives provision and pasturage to the cattle. All is bound together: the more the cattle is finely fattened, the better it is for the eater, according to our proverb; the better it sells, the better is the manure and consequently better is the culture. So with the poultry of Mathurin; without doubt, it is a great expense and requires many persons on the farm, for perhaps, gentlemen, you will not believe that to fatten one of these capons and one of these pullets as you see them here, we must open the beak and, fifteen or twenty times a day, put down the throat little balls of barley flour and milk, and that, too, for three months! But we get a famous product, because each capon brings us more than a weak mutton or veal. But immense care is necessary. So, with the advice of this dear uncle, whose advice is always good, we show every year at Christmas what we do on the farm. In the evening, upon the return of the cattle, the first two beeves which enter the stable, the finest or the poorest, no matter, chance decides it, are set aside; it is the same with the first six calves; afterward, when, the cages of the fowls are opened, the first dozen capons, the first dozen pullets, and the first dozen cocks which come out are set aside."

"What good is that?" asked the abbé. "What is done with these animals thus appointed by fate?"

"We make a lot of them and they are sold for the profit of the people on the farm. This profit is in addition to their fixed wages. You understand, gentlemen, that all my people are thus interested in the cattle and the poultry, which receive the best possible care, inasmuch as chance alone decides the lot of encouragement, as we call it. What is the result, gentlemen? It is that cattle and poultry become almost as much the property of my people as mine, because the finer the lot, the dearer it sells, and the larger the profit. Eh, gentlemen, would you believe that, thanks to the zeal, the care and diligence which my farm people give to the hope of this profit, I gain more than I give, because our interest is common, so that in improving the condition of these poor people, I advance my own."

"The moral of all this, my lord canon, is," said the doctor, smiling, "that it is necessary to eat as many fine sirloins as possible, as many tender cutlets from the salt meadows, and give oneself with equal devotion to the unlimited consumption of pullets, capons, and India cocks, so as to encourage this industry."

"I will try, doctor," said the canon, gravely, "to attain to the height of my duties."

"And they are more numerous than you think, Dom Diégo, because it depends upon you too to see that poor people are better clothed and better shod, and to this you can make especial contribution, by eating plenty of veal stewed à la Samaritan, plenty of beefsteak with anchovy sauce, and plenty of lambs' tongues à la d'Uxelle."

"Come now, doctor," said the canon, "you are joking!"

"You are rather slow in discovering that, Dom Diégo," said the abbé.

"I am speaking seriously," replied the doctor, "and I am going to prove it to you, Dom Diégo. What are shoes made of?"

"Of leather, doctor."

"And what produces this leather? Do not beeves, sheep, and calves? It is then evident that the more cattle consumed, the more the price of leather is diminished, and good health-promoting shoes become more accessible to the poor, who can afford only wooden shoes."

"That is true," said the canon, with a thoughtful expression. "It is certainly true."

"Now," continued the doctor, "of what are good woollen garments and good woollen stockings woven? Of the fleece of the sheep! Now, then, the greater the consumption of mutton, the cheaper wool becomes."

"Ah, doctor," cried the canon, carried away by a sudden burst of fine philosophy, "what a pity we cannot eat six meals a day! Yes, yes, a man could kill himself with indigestion for the greater happiness of his fellow men."

"Ah, Dom Diégo!" replied the doctor, in a significant tone. "Such perhaps is the martyrdom which awaits you!"

"And I shall submit to it with joy," cried the canon, enthusiastically. "It is sweet to die for humanity!"

Abbé Ledoux could no longer doubt that Dom Diégo was wholly beyond his influence, and manifested his vexation by angry glances, and disdainful shrugs of his shoulders.

"Oh, my God, doctor," suddenly exclaimed the canon, expanding his wide nostrils over and over again, "what is that appetising odour I scent there?"

"That is the exhibition of the industry pursued by my nephew Michel, my lord canon; these things are just out of the oven; see what a golden brown they have, how dainty they are!"

And Doctor Gasterini pointed out to the canon, the most marvellous specimens of pastry and bakery that one could possibly imagine: immense pies of game, of fish and of fowl, delicious morsels of baked shell-fish, fruit pies, little tarts with preserves and creams of all sorts, smoking cakes of every description, meringues with pineapple jelly, burnt almonds and sugared nuts, nougats mounted in shape of rocks, supporting temples of sugar candy, graceful ships of candy, whose top of fine spun sugar, resembling filigree work of silver, disclosed a dish of vanilla cakes, floating in rose-coloured cream whipped as light as foam. The list of wonderful dainties would be too long to enumerate, and Canon Dom Diégo stood before them in mute admiration.

"The dinner hour approaches, and I must go to my stoves, to give the finishing touch to certain dishes, which my pupils have begun," said Doctor Gasterini to his guest. "But to prove to you the importance of this appetising branch of industry, I will limit myself to a single question."

And addressing his nephew Michel, he said:

"My boy, tell the gentleman how much the stock of pastry you exhibit in the street of La Paix has cost."

"You ought to know, uncle," replied Michel, smiling affectionately at Doctor Gasterini, "for you advanced the money necessary for the expenditure."

"My faith, boy, you have reimbursed me long ago, and I have forgotten the figures. Let us see. It was — "

"Two hundred thousand francs, uncle. And I have done an excellent business. Besides, the house is good, because my predecessor made there twenty thousand a year income in ten years."

"Twenty thousand income!" cried Dom Diégo in astonishment, "twenty thousand!"

"Now you see, my lord canon, how capital is created by eating hot pies and plum cake with pistachios. But would you like to see something really grand? For this time we are discussing an industry which affects not only the interests of almost all the counties of France, but which extends over a great part of Europe and the East, — that is to say, Germany, Italy, Greece, Spain, and Portugal. An industry which puts in circulation an enormous amount of capital, which occupies entire populations, whose finest products sometimes reach a fabulous price, — an industry, in short, which is to gluttony what the soul is to the body, what mind is to matter. Wait, Dom Diégo, look and reverence, for here the youngest are already very old."

Immediately, through instinct, the canon took off his hat, and reverently bowed his head.

"I present to you my nephew Theodore, commissary of fine French and foreign wines," said the doctor to the canon.

There was nothing brilliant or showy in this stall; only simple wooden shelves filled with dusty bottles and above each shelf a label in red letters on a black ground, which made the brief and significant announcement:

"France.— Chambertin (comet); Clos-Vougeat, 1815; Volney (comet); Nuits, 1820; Pomard, 1834; Châblis, 1834; Pouilly (comet); Château Margot, 1818; Haut-Brion, 1820; Château Lafitte, 1834; Sauterne, 1811; Grave (comet); Roussillon, 1800; Tavel, 1802; Cahors, 1793; Lunel, 1814; Frontignan (comet); Rivesaltes, 1831; Foamy Ai, 1820; Ai rose, 1831; Dry Sillery (comet); Eau de vie de Cognac, 1757; Anisette de Bordeaux, 1804; Ratafia de Louvres, 1807.

"Germany.— Johannisberg, 1779; Rudesteimer, 1747; Hocheimer, 1760; Tokai, 1797; Vermouth, 1801; Vin de Hongrie, 1783; Kirchenwasser of the Black Forest, 1801.

"Holland.— Anisette, 1821; Curacao red, 1805; White Curacao, 1820; Genievre, 1799.

"Italy.— Lacryma Christi, 1803; Imola, 1819.

"Greece.— Chypre, 1801; Samos, 1813.

"Ionian Islands.— Marasquin de Zara.

"Spain.— Val de Penas, 1812; Xeres dry, 1809; Sweet Xeres, 1810; Escatelle, 1824; Tintilla de Rota, 1823; Malaga, 1799.

"Portugal.— Po, 1778.

"Island of Madeira.— Madeira, 1810; having made three voyages from the Indies.

"Cape of Good Hope.— Red and white and pale wines, 1826."

While Dom Diégo was looking on with profound interest, Doctor Gasterini said to his nephew:

"My boy, do you recollect the price at which some celebrated wine-cellars have been sold?"

"Yes, dear uncle," replied Michel, "the Duke of Sussex owned a wine-cellar which was sold for two hundred and eighty thousand francs; Lafitte's wine-cellar sold in Paris for nearly one hundred thousand francs; the one belonging to Lagillière, also in Paris, was sold for sixty thousand francs."

"Well, well, Dom Diégo," said Doctor Gasterini to his guest, "what do you think of it? Do you believe all this to be an abomination, as that wag Abbé Ledoux, who is observing us now with such a deceitful countenance, declares? Do you think the passion, which promotes an industry of such importance, deserves to be anathematised only? Think of the expenditure of labour in their transport and preservation that these wine-cellars must have cost. How many people have lived on the money they represent?"

"I think," said the canon, "that I was blind and stupid never to have comprehended, until now, the immense social, political, and industrial influence I have wielded by eating and drinking the choicest viands and wines. I think now that the consciousness of accomplishing a mission to the world in giving myself up to unbridled gluttony, will be a delicious aperient for my appetite, — a consciousness which I owe to you, and to you only, doctor. Oh, noble thinker! Oh, grand philosophy!"

"This is the science of gastronomy carried to insanity," said Abbé Ledoux. "It is a new paganism."

"My Lord Diégo," continued the doctor, "we will speak of the gratitude which you think you owe me, when we have taken a view of this last shop. Here is an industry which surpasses in importance all of which we have been speaking. The question is a grave one, for it turns the scale of gluttony's influence upon the equilibrium of Europe."

"The equilibrium of Europe!" said the canon, more and more dismayed. "What has eating to do with the equilibrium of Europe?"

"Go on, go on, Dom Diégo," said Abbé Ledoux, shrugging his shoulders, "if you listen to this tempter, he will prove to you things still more astonishing."

"I am going to prove, my dear abbé, both to you and to Dom Diégo, that I advance nothing but what is strictly true. And, first, you will confess, will you not, that the marine service of a nation like France has great weight in the balance of the destinies of Europe?"

"Certainly," said the canon.

"Well, what follows?" said the abbé.

"Now," pursued the doctor, "you will agree with me, that as this military marine service is strengthened or enfeebled, France gains or loses in the same proportion?"

"Evidently," said the canon.

"Conclude your argument," cried the abbé, "that is what I am waiting for."

"I will conclude then, my dear abbé, by saying that the more progress gluttony makes, the more accessible it becomes to the greatest number, the more will the military marine of France gain in strength and in influence, and that, my Lord Dom Diégo, I am going to demonstrate to you by begging you to read that sign."

And just above the door of this last stall, the only one not occupied by a niece or nephew of Doctor Gasterini, were the words "Colonial Provisions."

"Colonial provisions," repeated the canon aloud, looking at the physician with an interrogating air, while the abbé, more discerning, bit his lips with vexation.

"Do I need to tell you, lord canon," pursued the doctor, "that without colonies, we would have no merchant service, and without a merchant service, no navy for war, since the navy is recruited from the seamen in the merchant service? Well, if the lovers of good eating did not consume all the delicacies which you see exhibited here in small samples, — sugar, coffee, vanilla, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, rice, pistachios, Cayenne pepper, nutmeg, liquors from the islands, hachars from the Indies, what, I ask you, would become of our colonies, that is to say, our maritime power?"

"I am amazed," cried the canon, "I am dizzy; at each step I feel myself expand a hundred cubits."

"And, zounds! you are right, lord Dom Diégo," said the doctor, "for indeed, when, after having tasted at dessert a cheese frozen with vanilla, to which will succeed a glass of wine from Constance or the Cape, you take a cup of coffee, and conclude of course with one or two little glasses of liquor from the islands, flavoured with cloves or cinnamon, ah, well, you will further heroically the maritime power of France, and do in your sphere as much for the navy as the sailor or the captain. And speaking of captains, lord canon," added the doctor, sadly, "I wish you to observe that among all the shops we have seen, this one alone is empty, because the captain of the ship which has brought all these choice provisions from the Indies and the colonies dares not show himself, while he is under the cloud of your vengeance. I mean, canon, my poor nephew, Captain Horace. He alone has failed to come, to-day, to this family feast."

"Ah, the accursed serpent!" muttered the abbé, "how adroitly he goes to his aim; how well he knows how to wind this miserable brute, Dom Diégo, around his finger."

At the name of Captain Horace, the canon started, then relapsed into thoughtful silence.