t was recognised as a liqueur before
the sixteenth. The celebrated physician Arnauld de Villeneuve, who wrote
at the end of the thirteenth century, to whom credit has wrongly been
given for inventing brandy, employed it as one of his remedies, and thus
expresses himself about it: "Who would have believed that we could have
derived from wine a liquor which neither resembles it in nature, colour,
or effect?.... This _eau de vin_ is called by some _eau de vie_, and justly
so, since it prolongs life.... It prolongs health, dissipates superfluous
matters, revives the spirits, and preserves youth. Alone, or added to some
other proper remedy, it cures colic, dropsy, paralysis, ague, gravel, &c."

At a period when so many doctors, alchemists, and other learned men made
it their principal occupation to try to discover that marvellous golden
fluid which was to free the human race of all its original infirmities,
the discovery of such an elixir could not fail to attract the attention of
all such manufacturers of panaceas. It was, therefore, under the name of
_eau d'or_ (_aqua auri_) that brandy first became known to the world; a
name improperly given to it, implying as it did that it was of mineral
origin, whereas its beautiful golden colour was caused by the addition of
spices. At a later period, when it lost its repute as a medicine, they
actually sprinkled it with pure gold leaves, and at the same time that it
ceased to be exclusively considered as a remedy, it became a favourite
beverage. It was also employed in distilleries, especially as the basis of
various strengthening and exciting liqueurs, most of which have descended
to us, some coming from monasteries and others from chateaux, where they
had been manufactured.

The Kitchen.

Soups, broths, and stews, &c.--The French word _potage_ must originally
have signified a soup composed of vegetables and herbs from the kitchen
garden, but from the remotest times it was applied to soups in general.

As the Gauls, according to Athenaeus, generally ate their meat boiled, we
must presume that they made soup with the water in which it was cooked. It
is related that one day Gregory of Tours was sitting at the table of King
Chilperic, when the latter offered him a soup specially made in his honour
from chicken. The poems of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries mention
soups made of peas, of bacon, of vegetables, and of groats. In the
southern provinces there were soups made of