Besides, they know that their severe prescriptions are almost always without effect, and the patient seeks to avoid him.  Those who are around him, never are in want of a reason to gratify him.  People, however, will die.

The ration of a sick Russian, in 1815, would have made a porter drunk.  There was no retrenchment to be made, for military inspectors ran from day to day through the hospitals, and watched over the furnishment and the service of the various houses.

I express my opinions with the more confidence, because it is sustained by much experience, and that the most fortunate practitioners rely on my system.

The canon Rollet who died about fifty years ago, was a great drinker; and the first physician he employed, forbid him to use wine at all.  When, however, he came again, the doctor found his patient in bed, and before him the corpus delicti, i.e., a table covered with a white cloth, a chrystal cup, a handsome bottle, and a napkin to wipe his lips with.

The doctor at once became enraged, and was about to withdraw, when the canon said in a lamentable voice, “doctor, remember, if you forbade my drinking, you did not prohibit my looking at the bottle.”

The physician who attended M. Montlusin de Point de Veyle was far more cruel, for he not only forbid his patient to touch wine, but made him drink large quantities of water.

A short time after the doctor had left, Mme. de Montlusin, anxious to fulfil the requisition of the prescription, and contribute to her husband’s recovery, gave him a great glass of water, pure and limpid as possible.

The patient received it kindly and sought to drink it with resignation.  At the first swallow, however, he stopped, and giving the glass back to his wife, said, “Take this, dear, and keep it for the next dose; I have always heard, one should never trifle with remedies.”  Men of letters in the world of gastronomy, have a place nearly equal to that of men of medical faculty.

Under the reign of Louis XIV., men of letters were all given to drink.  They conformed to fashion and the memoirs of the day, in this respect, are very defying.  They are now gourmands,—­a great amelioration.

I am far from agreeing with the cynic Geoffroy, who used to say that modern works were deficient in power because authors now drank only eau sucree.

I think he made two mistakes, both in the fact and the consequences.

The age we live in is rich in talents; they injure each other perhaps by their multitude; but posterity, judging with more calmness, will see much to admire.  Thus we do justice to the great productions of Racine and Moliere which when written were coldly received.

The social position of men of letters was never more agreeable.  They no longer live in the garrets they used to inhabit, for the field of literature has become fertile.  The stream of Hippocrene rolls down golden sands:  equals of all, they never hear the language of protection, and gourmandise overwhelms them with its choicest favours.