The Physiology of Taste (6 page)

HISTORICAL EVENTS:
Napoleon king of Italy (May). Third Coalition formed (July). French victories at Ulm (October) and Austerlitz (December). Nelson defeats Franco-Spanish fleet at battle of Trafalgar (21 October).
Portrait of
Josephine de Beauharnais
by Prud’hon. American inventor Oliver Evans designs (but does not make) first refrigeration machine. Absinthe first manfuactured in France by Maison Pernod Fils, Franche-Comté.

DATE:
1806

AUTHOR’S LIFE:
Observes with approbation the progress of Napoleon’s army. His brother Frédéric is commanding a battalion in Germany and two nephews are in Naples with Joseph Bonaparte. Acquires more land to add to his estates.

LITERARY CONTEXT:
Grimod de La Reyniere:
Journal des gourmands et des belles
.
Maria Eliza Rundel:
A New System of Domestic Cookery
.

HISTORICAL EVENTS:
Austria concludes humiliating Peace of Pressburg with France (January). Joseph Bonaparte king of Naples (March); Louis Bonaparte king of Holland (June). Confederation of the Rhine formed with Napoleon as its “Protector” (July); Holy Roman Empire dissolved (August). Prussian army defeated at Jena (October). Berlin Decrees (November): blockade of Britain declared. Arc de Triomphe commissioned (unfinished at the Restoration in 1814, when work is suspended).

DATE:
1807

AUTHOR’S LIFE:
In gratitude for his frustrating her attempted suicide, Mme Récamier presents him with a terracotta bust of herself of which he is extremely proud.

LITERARY CONTEXT:
Mme de Stael:
Corinne
.
Hegel:
Phenomenology of Mind
.

HISTORICAL EVENTS:
Russians defeated at Friedland (June). France achieves European hegemony by Treaty of Tilsit with Russia and Prussia (July).
Napoleon orders construction of the Bourse in Paris: designed in neoclassical style by Brongniart, it is completed in 1825. Sir Humphrey Davy wins Napoleon Prize from Institut de France for his
On Some Chemical Agencies of Electricity;
discovers sodium and potassium.

DATE:
1808

AUTHOR’S LIFE:
Publishes a pamphlet,
Théorie judiciare
, concerning the selection of judges, evidently intending to follow it up with a longer work. Napoleon elevates the entire bench of the
Cour de cassation
to the new, imperial nobility, BS becoming
chevalier de l’Empire
.

LITERARY CONTEXT:
Grimod de La Reynière:
Manuel des amphitryons
.
Fourier:
Théorie des quatre mouvements et des destinies générales
.
Goethe:
Faust
(part 1).

HISTORICAL EVENTS:
Joseph Bonaparte king of Spain. Peninsular War begins. Napoleon starts to re-create a hereditary aristocracy: by the end of his rule he has created 3000 nobles. His court has already become a public spectacle of pomp and elegance, reviving ceremonies practised under the
ancien régime
. imperial University” founded to control education in France.
Baccalauréat
introduced.
Ecole normale
set up as a training college for teachers in the universities and
lycées
.

DATE:
1809

LITERARY CONTEXT:
Cadet de Gassicourt:
Cours gastronomique ou les dîners de
Manant-ville
.
Chateaubriand:
Les Martyrs
.
Goethe:
Elective Affinities
.

HISTORICAL EVENTS:
War between France and Austria resumed (February); French victory at Wagram (July). French annexation of Papal States (May); Pope Pius VII, having excommunicated Napoleon, is taken prisoner by the French (July). Wellesley victorious at Talavera and created Duke of Wellington (July).

DATE:
1810

LITERARY CONTEXT:
Gall:
Anatomie et physiologie du système nerveux en général, et du cerveau en particulier
.
Goethe:
Theory of Colours
.
Mme de Staël:
De l’Allemagne
.

HISTORICAL EVENTS:
Napoleon divorces Josephine and marries Archduchess Marie-Louise of Austria.

DATE:
1811

LITERARY CONTEXT:
Appert:
L’Art de conserver les substances animales et végétales
.

HISTORICAL EVENTS:
Birth of Napoleon’s son, the duc de Reichstadt. British victories in Portugal. European economic crisis (to 1813). After further closures by the police, the number of Paris newspapers is reduced to four (there had been 73 when Napoleon first came to power).

DATE:
1812

LITERARY CONTEXT:
Byron:
Childe Harold’s
Pilgrimage
(to 1818).

HISTORICAL EVENTS:
Napoleon invades Russia (June); battle of Borodino and occupation of Moscow (September); retreat from Moscow (October–December). Wellington takes Madrid (August).

DATE:
1813

LITERARY CONTEXT:
Louis Eustache Ude:
The French Cook
.
Saint-Simon:
Mémoire sur la science de l’homme
.
Shelley:
Queen Mab
.

HISTORICAL EVENTS:
Prussia and Austria rejoin war on France as part of the Sixth Coalition. Liberation of Germany begins. Napoleon decisively defeated by Allied forces at battle of Leipzig (October). Wellington crosses the Pyrenees (October).

DATE:
1814

AUTHOR’S LIFE:
As part of the imperial establishment, judges of the
Cour de cassation
act quickly after Napoleon’s abdication, making their submission to the comte d’Artois, the new Lieutenant-General of the kingdom (9 April). Brillat retires to Belley, where he writes a second legal paper,
De la Cour suprême
, arguing that the law should be safeguarded and courts (as presently structured) sacrosanct despite changes of regime. Concerned for his position, he writes to an old friend, the aristocratic abbé de Montesquiou, newly appointed Minister of the Interior, mentioning his past “attachment for the monarchy” (October). Whiles away the time shooting and writing five short stories or
contes
, destroyed in the early 20th century, presumably because of their pornographic nature. Only a few fragments remain.

LITERARY CONTEXT:
Beauvilliers:
L’Art du cuisinier
.
Etienne de Jouy:
L’Hermite de la Chaussée d’Antin, ou observations sur les moeurs et les usages français au commencement du XIXme siècle
(to 1815).
Scott:
Waverley
.

HISTORICAL EVENTS:
Allies invade France. Fall of Paris (March). Abdication of Napoleon and exile to Elba (April). Wellington’s assault on Toulouse (April). Allies and French provisional government recall Louis XVIII from exile in England. He issues Saint-Omer proclamation promising representative government and indemnity for supporters of previous regimes. Makes ceremonial entry into Paris on 3 May. Constitutional Charter (June): bicameral parliament set up, religious toleration declared and current ownership of property legally recognized. Congress of Vienna (1 November to June 1815): international conference to agree post-war settlement of Europe.
French foreign minister Tallyrand’s table at the Congress of Vienna becomes renowned, as does his
chef de cuisine
, Antonin Carême. The following year Carême finds employment with the Prince Regent in England. Other illustrious patrons will include Tsar Alexander I and James Rothschild. When he starts writing cookbooks his fame spreads still further, turning him into the world’s first celebrity chef.

DATE:
1815

AUTHOR’S LIFE:
The appeal-court judges are restored to their positions, and BS returns to Paris (February) as a royalist. On 27 March, however, the
Cour de cassation
comes out in support of Napoleon as he bids to reclaim his empire, just as rapidly proclaiming loyalty to Louis XVIII after Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo. BS is much saddened when his personal attempt to curry favour with Napoleon causes a permanent estrangement from Rostaing, one of his oldest and closest friends.

LITERARY CONTEXT:
Constant:
Principes de politique applicables à tous les gouvernements représentatifs
.
Carême:
Le Pâtissier royal parisien
.
Austen:
Emma
.

HISTORICAL EVENTS:
The Hundred Days: Napoleon lands in France, entering Paris on 20 March. Defeated by Allied armies at Waterloo (18 June). Flight and return of Louis XVIII. Second Bourbon Restoration (July). Napoleon banished to St Helena (August). Second White Terror in the south (August). Election of ultra-royalist Chamber of Deputies known as the
Chambre introuvable
(August).
Duc de Richelieu becomes chief minister. Second Treaty of Paris (November) finalizes peace terms: French boundaries reduced to those of 1790, France to pay 700 million francs in war damages, an Allied army of occupation to remain in place for up to five years.
Stethoscope invented (France).

DATE:
1816

AUTHOR’S LIFE:
Post-Restoration, BS’s life is little changed. At Vieu he continues to enjoy the shooting, takes a great interest in wine-making, reads the classics and makes the occasional archaeological dig. He is accompanied everywhere by his new hunting spaniel Ida – including the courtroom and the restaurant afterwards (on one occasion she chews up a brief). Devoted to her, he writes a touching poem when she has to be put down in old age.

LITERARY CONTEXT:
Constant:
Adolphe
.
Saint-Simon launches
Industrie
(to 1818), first of a number of periodicals produced in collaboration with Thierry and later Comte.

HISTORICAL EVENTS:
Dissolution of the
Chambre introuvable;
new elections create a working majority for Richelieu.
Rossini:
The Barber of Seville
(from Beaumarchais).

DATE:
1817

AUTHOR’S LIFE:
BS’s godson Anthelme Richerand buys a country house near Versailles, where the judge is a frequent visitor, and where he would write most of
La Physiologie du goût
. It is here that he steams the outsize turbot.

LITERARY CONTEXT:
Lamennais:
Essai sur l’indiffêrence en matière de religion
(to 1824).

DATE:
1818

LITERARY CONTEXT:
Publication of letters and correspondence of Mme d’Epinay (1726–83)as
Histoire de Madame de Monbrillant
.

HISTORICAL EVENTS:
France’s war debt is paid off and Allied army withdraws (November). Resignation of Richelieu and his replacement by Decazes, a favourite of Louis XVIII.

DATE:
1819

AUTHOR’S LIFE:
Makes Mme Récamier a present of another of his
contes
(again, only a fragment remains). Publishes his
Essai historique et critique sur le duel –
a topical subject as there had been an outbreak of duelling between Bonapartists and royalists. On his name-day (26 June) he throws a party at his house in Paris open to any
bugiste
living in the capital.

LITERARY CONTEXT:
Irving:
The Sketch Book
(to 1820).
Byron:
Don Juan
(to 1824).
Scott:
Ivanhoe; The Bride of Lammermoor
.
Chénier (d. 1794):
La Jeune Tarrentine; La Jeune Captive
.
De Maistre:
Du Pape
.
Constant: “De la Liberté des Anciens Comparée à celle des Modernes (lecture).

HISTORICAL EVENTS:
Peterloo Massacre and Six Acts in England. Metternich’s repressive Carlsbad Decrees (German Federation).
Géricault:
The Raft of the Medusa
.

DATE:
1820

AUTHOR’S LIFE:
Mémoire sur l’archéologie de la partie orientale du département de l’Ain
, BS’s history of the vine in Bugey.

LITERARY CONTEXT:
Lamartine:
Méditations poétiques
.
Shelley:
Prometheus Unbound
.
Thomas Brown:
Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind
.

HISTORICAL EVENTS:
Assassination of the duc de Berry, heir presumptive to the French throne; posthumous birth of his son. Fall of Decazes’ government and recall of Richelieu. Revolution in Spain and Naples.
Death of Napoleon on St Helena. Revolutionary movement of the Charbonnerie. Fall of Richelieu: Ultras take over government.

DATE:
1821

LITERARY CONTEXT:
Carême:
Le Maître d’hôtel français
.
Etienne de Jouy:
Sylla
.
De Quincey:
Confessions of an English Opium Eater
.
Birth of Flaubert and Baudelaire.

HISTORICAL EVENTS:
Church begins to gain control of education in France. Greek War of Independence begins.

DATE:
1822

LITERARY CONTEXT:
Von Rumohr:
The Spirit of Cookery
.
Mme de Genlis:
Dîners du Baron d’Holbach
.
Cardelli:
Manuel du cuisinier et de la cuisinière à l’usage de la ville et de la campagne
.
Stendhal:
De l’Amour
(referred to by the author in his preface to 1842 edition, as a
Physiologie de l’amour.)
Fourier:
Théorie de l’unité universelle
.

HISTORICAL EVENTS:
Plot of four sergeants at La Rochelle. Villèle becomes President of the Council; his fiscal policies result in long-term financial stability. Government censorship tightened. Champollion deciphers Rosetta Stone. Delacroix:
Dante’s Bark
.

DATE:
1823

AUTHOR’S LIFE:
BS mentions in a letter that he is “still working” on the
Physiologie du goût
.

LITERARY CONTEXT:
Launcelot Sturgeon:
Essays
,
Moral, Philosophical and Stomachical, on the Important Science of Good Living
.
Lamb:
The Essays of Elia
.
Stendhal:
Racine et Shakespeare
.
Guizot:
Essais sur l’histoire de France
.
Thiers:
Histoire de la révolution française
(to 1827).