Gourmands by profession.

If there be gourmands by predestination, there are also gourmands by profession.  There are four classes of these:  Financiers, men of letters, doctors, and devotees.

Financiers.

Financiers are the heroes of gourmandise.  Hero is here the proper name, for there was some contention, and the men who had titles crowd all others beneath their titles and escutcheons.  They would have triumphed, but for the wealth of those they opposed.  Cooks contended with genealogists; and though dukes did not fail to laugh at their amphitryon, they came to the dinner, and that was enough.

Those persons who make money easily must be gourmands.

The inequality of wealth produces inequality of wants.  He who can pay every day for a dinner fit for an hundred persons, is often satisfied after having eaten the thigh of a chicken.  Art then must use well its resources to revive appetite.  Thus Mondar became a gourmand, and others with the same tastes collects around him.

Physicians.

Causes of another nature, though far less baneful, act on physicians, who, from the nature of things, are gourmands.  To resist the attractions set before them they must necessarily be made of bronze.

One day I ventured to say, (Doctor Corvisart was at the end of the table—­the time was about 1806):—­

“You are,” said I, with the air of an inspired puritan, “the last remnant of a composition which once covered all France.  The members of it are either annihilated or dispersed.  No longer do we see farmers general, abbes, chevaliers, &c.  Bear the burden they have bequeathed to you, even if you take the three hundred Spartans who died at Thermopylae; such a fate should be yours.”

Nobody contradicted me.

At dinner I made a remark which was worthy of notice:—­

Doctor Corvisart was a very pleasant man when he pleased, and was very fond of iced champagne.  For this reason, while all the rest of the company were dull and idle, he dealt in anecdotes and stories.  On the contrary, when the dessert was put on, and conversation became animated, he became serious and almost morose.

From this and other observations, I deduced the following conclusion:  Champagne, the first effect of which is exhilarating, in the result is stupefying, on account of the excessant carbonic gases it contains.

OBJUGATION.

As I measure doctors by their diplomatu, I will not reproach them for the severity with which they treat their invalids.

As soon as one has the misfortune to fall into their hands, one has to give up all we have previously thought agreeable.

I look on the majority of these prohibitions as useless.  I say useless, because patients never desire what is injurious to them.

A reasonable physician should never lose sight of the natural tendency of our inclinations, nor forget to ascertain if our penchants are painful in themselves, or improving to health.  A little wine, or a few drops of liquor, brings the smiles to the most hypochondriac faces.