Added to this was the necessity of meeting the demands of individuals of various nations, for whom the allied sovereigns had stipulated, to the amount of more than 300,000,000.

To this must be added requisitions of all kinds by the generals of the enemies who loaded whole wagons, which they sent towards the frontier, and which the treasury ultimately had to pay for.  The total was more than 1,500,000,000 francs.

One might, one almost should have feared, that such large payments, collected from day to day, would have produced want in the treasury, a deprecation of all fictitious values, and consequently all the evils which befall a country that has no money, while it owes much.

“Alas,” said the rich, as they saw the wagon going to the Rue Vivienne for its load; “all our money is emigrating, next year we will bow down to a crown:  we are utterly ruined; all our undertakings will fail, and we will not be able to borrow.  There will be nothing but ruin and civil death.”

The result contradicted all these fears; the payments, to the amazement of financiers, were made without trouble, public credit increased, and all hurried after loans.  During the period of this superpurgation, the course of exchange, an infallible measure of the circulating of money, was in our favor.  This was an arithmetical proof that more money came into France than left it.

What power came to our aid?  What divinity operated this miracle?  Gourmandise.

When the Britons, Germans, Teutons, Cimmerians, and Scythes, made an irruption into France, they came with extreme voracity and with stomachs of uncommon capacity.

They were not long contented with the cheer furnished them by a forced hospitality, but aspired to more delicate enjoyments.  The Queen City, ere long, became one immense refectory.  The new comers ate in shops, cafes, restaurants, and even in the streets.

They gorged themselves with meat, fish, game, truffles, pastry and fruit.

They drank with an avidity quite equal to their appetite, and always called for the most costly wine, expecting in those unknown enjoyments, pleasures they did not meet with.

Superficial observers could not account for this eating, without hunger, which seemed limitless.  All true Frenchmen, however, rubbed their hands, and said, “they are under the charm; they have spent this evening more money than they took from the treasury in the morning.”

This epoch was favorable to all those who contributed to the gratification of the taste.  Very made his fortune, Achard laid the foundation of his, and Madame Sullot, the shop of whom, in the Palais Royal, was not twenty feet square, sold twelve thousand petits pates a day.

The effect yet lasts, for strangers crowd to Paris from all parts of Europe, to rest from the fatigues of war.  Our public monuments, it may be, are not so attractive as the pleasures of gourmandise, everywhere elaborated in Paris, a city essentially gourmand.