The Physiology of Taste (5 page)

DATE:
1795

AUTHOR’S LIFE:
Enjoys the food and the company, male and female, in New York, and, in the autumn, Boston, where the theatre is evacuated during a yellow-fever epidemic. En route, BS shoots wild turkey outside Hartford, Connecticut. His family in France do their best to delay or circumvent the sale of his property and goods and his mother obtains an order suspending him from the list of é
migrés
in Bourg-en-Bresse (October). With the fall of the Jacobins, his return home becomes a possibility and he petitions the Directory to allow it (November).

LITERARY CONTEXT:
Condorcet (d. 1794):
Esquisse d’un tableau historique des progrès de l’esprit humain
.
Chamfort (d. 1794):
Maximes et pensées, caractères et anecdotes
.
Sade:
Aline et Valcour; La Philosophie dans le boudoir
.
Goethe:
Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship
.

HISTORICAL EVENTS:
Prussia, Holland and Spain make peace this year; Austria and Great Britain continue the War of the First Coalition.
Peace of Jaunaye temporarily ends royalist revolt in Vendée (January). Day of 12 germinal (1 April): popular demonstration calls for “Bread and the Constitution of 1793;” arrest and deportation of prominent terrorists Collot d’Herbois, Billaud-Varenne and Barère. Day of 1 prairial (20–23 May): insurrection in Paris put down by National Guard. Dictatorship of Committee of Public Safety ended; revolutionary committees in provinces suppressed; Paris Commune dismantled. Death of young king Louis XVII in the Temple prison (June). Defeat of é
migré
expedition at Quiberon in Brittany (July).
Constitution of the year III (August) brings in indirect elections and franchise restricted to properted classes; executive power to be exercised by a committe of five with a bicameral legislature. Royalist rising of 13 vendémiaire put down by troops commanded by Bonaparte. Dissolution of Convention (October); Directory comes to power (November). Massive inflation.
Reappearance of salons in Paris, notably those of Mme Récamier, Josephine de Beauharnais, Mme Tallien and – for intellectual society – Mme de Staël. Exaggerated fashions of the
incroyables
and the
merveilleuses
.
In order to keep French forces fed, government offers 12,000 francs to anyone able to provide effective means of preserving food. Prize is awarded 15 years later to Nicholas Appert, inventor of the canning process (to begin with he used glass bottles, which is what Napoleon’s soldiers took with them to Moscow).

DATE:
1796

AUTHOR’S LIFE:
No response from the French government to BS’s many letters. Back in New York by the spring, he acquires a mistress but is fast running out of money. Borrowing from the French Consul to pay for his passage, he sails down the coast to Philadelphia and thence to France (June). Via Paris (where he lobbies for his removal from the national list of é
migrés) he
returns to Belley (September).

LITERARY CONTEXT:
Lewis:
The Monk
.

HISTORICAL EVENTS:
Napoleon made commander of army in Italy (March), defeating the army of Sardinia (April), which sues for peace, losing Savoy and Nice to France.
Defeats the Austrian rearguard at Lodi (May), convincing himself he is a man of destiny. Enters Milan (May). Further French victories include Castiglione (August) and Arcola (November).
Babeuf’s conspiracy (May) attracts support from some former Jacobins but is easily crushed by government.
David:
The Intervention of the Sabine Women
(to 1799).

DATE:
1797

AUTHOR’S LIFE:
BS regains his position as a judge in the
Tribunal de cassation
(February) and at the same time is restored to his sequestered property (with the exception of a favourite vineyard at Machuraz, which had been sold to a tenacious peasant). Lives in Paris. Loses his job after the republican coup of 19 fructidor (September). Contacts secure him a job with General Augereau’s Army of the Rhine and Moselle as Secretary to the General Staff. This he finds particularly uncongenial.

LITERARY CONTEXT:
Chateaubriand:
Essai sur les révolutions
.
Sade:
La Nouvelle Justine; Juliette
.
Schelling:
Ideas towards a Philosophy of Nature
.

HISTORICAL EVENTS:
Napoleon inflicts crushing defeat on Austrian army at Rivoli (January). Mantua falls (February). Napoleon invades Papal States; pope cedes Bologna, Ferrara and Ancona to France. March on Vienna. Austrians make peace (April). Treaty of Campo Formio (October): Austria recognizes most French territorial annexations; northern Italy divided into French Republican states. Venice, which had been occupied by the French, is handed over to Austria.
Constitutional monarchists gain majority in French elections (April).
Coup d’état
of 18 fructidor (4 September); Paris put under military occupation, enabling the three republican Directors to remove their monarchist colleagues. Usual purges and repressive measures follow. Law against é
migrés
re-enacted.
John Adams US president (to 1801). Jenner creates successful smallpox vaccine.

DATE:
1798

AUTHOR’S LIFE:
Takes up a new post as President of the Criminal Court in Bourg (January) where most of the cases involve judging terrorists both Jacobin and monarchist.
Appointed State Prosecutor for the Department of Seine-et-Oise, based at Versailles (May). Manages to reclaim all his plates, pots and pans which had been sold off in his absence, and also his library.

LITERARY CONTEXT:
Schiller:
Wallenstein
.
Wordsworth and Coleridge:
Lyrical Ballads
.
Coleridge:
The Recantation
(later
France: an Ode)
.
Amelia Simmons:
American Cookery
.

HISTORICAL EVENTS:
French troops enter Rome; pope expelled and Roman Republic set up (February). Invasion of Switzerland: Helvetic Republic established. Geneva annexed (April). Napoleon embarks on Egyptian campaign (May); defeats Mamluk forces at battle of the Pyramids (July). French fleet destroyed by Nelson at Aboukir Bay (August).
First paper-making machine patented by Nicolas-Louis Robert.

DATE:
1799

AUTHOR’S LIFE:
Witnesses the coup of 18 brumaire of which he evidently approves; ten days later the judges at Versailles send off a message of congratulation to Napoleon.

LITERARY CONTEXT:
Birth of Balzac.

HISTORICAL EVENTS:
War of Second Coalition, with Russia, Turkey and later Austria, Portugal and Naples joining Great Britain against France. Initial Allied successes (March – July) lead to fear of invasion, temporarily allayed by Masséna’s victory over Russian army in Switzerland (September). Siéyés enters Directory (May), removing and replacing two of his fellow Directors (day of 30 prairial: 18 June), later allying with Napoleon against the legislative councils (dominated by republicans). Coup of 18 brumaire (9–10 November): in an atmosphere of fear stirred up by rumours of Jacobin terrorist plots, Napoleon’s troops drive deputies from the Council of Five Hundred (lower house), meeting at the Château de Saint-Cloud. Constitution of year VIII. As First Consul (of three), Napoleon effectively makes himself dictator (December). Central to his adminstrative struture is the new Council of State.

DATE:
1800

AUTHOR’S LIFE:
His job of
procureur
being abolished in the new legal reforms, Brillat applies for reappointment to the
Tribunal de cassation
and is successful (April). This time the judges are granted unlimited tenure. Takes lodgings in Paris and finds plenty of opportunity (he is required in court only three days a week) to sample the many restaurants with which the capital now teams.

LITERARY CONTEXT:
Sade:
Les Crimes de l’amour
.
Mme de Stael:
De la littératur.

HISTORICAL EVENTS:
Law of 28 pluviôse (17 February) year VIII establishes prefectoral system of controlling local government. Pacification of royalist West. Battle of Marengo (June). French victory again removes fear of Austrian invasion. Austrians routed at Hohenlinden (December). Royalists led by Cadoudal attempt to blow up Napoleon on his way to the opera (24 December). Bank of France founded. David’s portrait of Madame Récamier. Chicken Marengo supposedly created by Napoleon’s Swiss chef to commemorate his victory at Marengo.

DATE:
1801

AUTHOR’S LIFE:
In Paris for court sessions, and on his estate at Vieu (home to his two unmarried sisters) for two months in the autumn for the shooting season. Almost without exception, this remains the pattern for the rest of BS’s life. Publishes
Vues et projets d’économie politique
, suggesting improvements in many areas of public life – civil service, roads, commerce and industry, agriculture, the law, the army and finance.

LITERARY CONTEXT:
First documented use of the word gastronomy in
La Gastronomie ou l’homme des champs à table
, a poem by Joseph Berchoux.
Anthelme Richerand (BS’s godson):
Eléments de la physiologie
.
Chateaubriand:
Atala
.

HISTORICAL EVENTS:
Treaty of Lunéville: Austria makes peace with France (February), recognizing her conquests. French army in Egypt capitulates (August). Jacquard invents mechanical loom. German chemist Franz Karl Achard opens first sugar beet refinery in Konary, Silesia.

DATE:
1802

AUTHOR’S LIFE:
The
Tribunal de cassation
is involved in consultations over the projected Civil Code. Out of curiosity, BS attends a service in Notre Dame cathedral to celebrate the Peace of Amiens, at which Napoleon and his fellow-Consuls are present (18 April). It is the first time he has been to Mass for many years.

LITERARY CONTEXT:
Cabanis:
Rapports de physique et du moral de l’homme
.
Chateaubriand:
Le Génie de Christianisme
.
Mme de Genlis:
Mademoiselle de Clermont
.
Mme de Stael:
Delphine
.
Florian:
Fables
.
Birth of Hugo and Dumas
père
.

HISTORICAL EVENTS:
Napoleon negotiates Peace of Amiens with Great Britain on terms favourable to France (March). Concordat with Roman Catholic Church announced (April). Amnesty for all but around 1000 é
migrés
(April). Napoleon is confirmed by plebiscite as First Consul for life (May). Decree announcing new education system; 30
lycées
set up (May).
Légion d’honneur
created. Slavery in the colonies reinstated (abolished since 1794). Work begins on La Grande Corniche along the Mediterranean coast. Under Napoleon’s rule over 20,000 miles of imperial roads and 12,000 miles of regional roads are constructed, including the Simplon and Mont Cenis Alpine passes.
Café Anglais opens in Boulevard des italiens, named in honour of the recent peace treaty. Orginally a humble coffee-house it becomes a well-known restaurant in the 1820s, but gains its gastronomic repuation when the great chef Adolph Dugléré arrives in 1866.

DATE:
1803

AUTHOR’S LIFE:
Has his “arms” carved on on his pew in the village church at Vieu.

LITERARY CONTEXT:
Grimod de La Reynière:
L’Almanach des gourmands
(to 1813).
Goethe:
The Natural Daughter
.

HISTORICAL EVENTS:
France sells Louisiana to the United States. France and Great Britain resume war.
La Reynière comments that the Revolution has turned humble cooks – by depriving them of employment in aristocratic households – into flourishing restaurateurs, estimating that the latter had increased from roughly 100 to 500 since 1789.
Birth of Berlioz.

DATE:
1804

AUTHOR’S LIFE:
Briefly incurs the displeasure of Napoleon by arranging for his cousin’s wife, society beauty Juliette Récamier, to attend the trial of General Moreau and other monarchist plotters at which BS is one of the judges. As a consequence he finds himself a regular guest at the Récamiers, who entertain lavishly. Becomes passionately devoted to Mme Récamier. Along with his colleagues on the bench, he is awarded the
Légion d’honneur
(14 July). Throws a ball at his country estate at Vieu. The
Tribunal de cassation
becomes the
Cour de cassation
on Napoleon’s elevation to emperor (December), and BS becomes a Counsellor.

LITERARY CONTEXT:
Schiller:
William Tell
.

HISTORICAL EVENTS:
Second Cadoudal conspiracy to assassinate Napoleon. Civil Code promulgated (March); during next seven years further codes are added – Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Commercial and Penal. Execution of the duc d’Enghien as an é
migré
in foreign service (March). Proclamation of Empire (May). French forces gather at Boulogne for an invasion of England, which never takes place. Napoleon crowns himself at Notre Dame, the pope attending the ceremony (2 December).
The story runs that the duc de Tallyrand set the young Antonin Carême – already a talented
pâtissier
, adept at creating replicas of classical architecture in pastry, marzipan and spun sugar – the task of devising a different menu for every day of the year, using ingredients of the season. Passing with flying colours, he is trained in the duke’s kitchen and goes on to become a culinary superstar, and one of the principal originators of
haute cuisine
. Napoleon would borrow him for special assignments.
Around this time the Café Hardy in Paris invents the
déjeuner à la fourchette
. David appointed court painter to Napoleon. Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony.

DATE:
1805

AUTHOR’S LIFE:
In Paris during the winter, BS is a keen member of the Society for the Encouragement of Industry and the antiquarian society, the Académie Celtique. He continues practising the violin (he owns a Stradivarius) and even composes a Mass.

LITERARY CONTEXT:
Chateaubriand:
René
.
Wordsworth completes first version of
The Prelude
.
Birth of Tocqueville.