ogress of dining, and consequently of cookery.

Under Louis XIV. further advances were made. His _maitre d'hotel_,
Bechamel, is famous for his sauce; and Vatel, the great Conde's cook,
was a celebrated artist, of whose suicide in despair at the tardy
arrival of the fish which he had ordered, Madame de Sevigne relates a
moving story. The prince de Soubise, immortalized by his onion sauce,
also had a famous chef.

In England the names of certain cookery-books may be noted, such as Sir
J. Elliott's (1539), Abraham Veale's (1575), and the _Widdowe's
Treasure_ (1625). The _Accomplisht Cook_, by Robert May, appeared in
1665, and from its preface we learn that the author (who speaks
disparagingly of French cookery, but more gratefully of Italian and
Spanish) was the son of a cook, and had studied abroad and under his
father (c. 1610) at Lady Dormer's, and he speaks of that time as "the
days wherein were produced the triumphs and trophies of cookery." From
his description they consisted of most fantastic and elaborately built
up dishes, intended to amuse and startle, no less than to satisfy the
appetite and palate.

Louis XV. was a great gourmet; and his reign saw many developments in
the culinary art. The mayonnaise (originally _mahonnaise_) is ascribed
to the duc de Richelieu. Such dishes as "_potage a la Xavier_,"
"_cailles a la Mirepoix_," "_chartreuses a la Mauconseil_," "_poulets a
la Villeroy_," "_potage a la Conde_," "_gigot a la Mailly_," owe their
titles to celebrities of the day, and the Pompadour gave her name to
various others. The Jesuits Brunoy and Bougeant, who wrote a preface to
a contemporary treatise on cookery (1739), described the modern art as
"more simple, more appropriate, and more cunning, than that of old
days," giving the ingredients the same union as painters give to
colours, and harmonizing all the tastes. The very phrase "_cordon bleu_"
(strictly applied only to a woman cook) arose from an enthusiastic
recognition of female merit by the king himself. Madame du Barry, piqued
at his opinion that only a man could cook to perfection, had a dinner
prepared for him by a _cuisiniere_ with such success that the delighted
monarch demanded that the artist should be named, in order that so
precious a _cuisinier_ might be engaged for the royal household.
"_Allons donc, la France!_" retorted the ex-grisette, "have I caught you
at last? It is no _cuisinier_ at all, but a _cuisiniere_, and I demand a
recompens