these lampreys--ah! what do
you say to them? And by the Lord! The finest barbel ever drawn from
the Loire! Just stick your teeth into this pastry. This game is my own
hunting; he who takes it not offends me." And again, "Drink, the
king's eyes are the other way. Just give your opinion of these
preserves, they are Madame's own. Have some of these grapes, they are
my own growing. Have some medlars." And while inducing them to swell
out their abdominal protuberances, the good monarch laughed with them,
and they joked and disputed, and spat, and blew their noses, and
kicked up just as though the king had not been with them. Then so much
victuals had been taken on board, so many flagons drained and stews
spoiled, that the faces of the guests were the colour of cardinals
gowns, and their doublets appeared ready to burst, since they were
crammed with meat like Troyes sausages from the top to the bottom of
their paunches. Going into the saloon again, they broke into a profuse
sweat, began to blow, and to curse their gluttony. The king sat
quietly apart; each of them was the more willing to be silent because
all their forces were required for the intestinal digestion of the
huge platefuls confined in their stomachs, which began to wabble and
rumble violently. One said to himself, "I was stupid to eat of that
sauce." Another scolded himself for having indulged in a plate of eels
cooked with capers. Another thought to himself, "Oh! oh! The forcemeat
is serving me out." The cardinal, who was the biggest bellied man of
the lot, snorted through his nostrils like a frightened horse. It was
he who was first compelled to give vent to a loud sounding belch, and
then he soon wished himself in Germany, where this is a form of
salutation, for the king hearing this gastric language looked at the
cardinal with knitted brows.

"What does this mean?" said he, "am I a simple clerk?"

This was heard with terror, because usually the king made much of a
good belch well off the stomach. The other guests determined to get
rid in another way of the vapours which were dodging about in their
pancreatic retorts; and at first they endeavoured to hold them for a
little while in the pleats of their mesenteries. It was then that some
of them puffed and swelled like tax-gatherers. Beaupertuys took the
good king aside and said to him--

"Know now that I have had made by the Church jeweller Peccard, two
large dolls, exactly resembling this lady and myself.