“Well, gentlemen,” said the king, re-entering the room, “let us fall to; we have had a good day’s sport.”

And the surgeon, the cardinal, a fat bishop, the captain of the Scotch Guard, a parliamentary envoy, and a judge loved of the king, followed the two ladies into the room where one rubs the rust off one’s jaw bones.  And there they lined the mold of their doublets.  What is that?  It is to pave the stomach, to practice the chemistry of nature, to register the various dishes, to regale your tripes, to dig your grave with your teeth, play with the sword of Cain, to inter sauces, to support a cuckold.  But more philosophically it is to make ordure with one’s teeth.  Now, do you understand?  How many words does it require to burst open the lid of your understanding?

The king did not fail to distill into his guests this splendid and first-class supper.  He stuffed them with green peas, returning to the hotch-potch, praising the plums, commending the fish, saying to one, “Why do you not eat?” to another, “Drink to Madame”; to all of them, “Gentlemen, taste these lobsters; put this bottle to death!  You do not know the flavour of this forcemeat.  And 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.