“‘Well,’ said Mieritz, with the cool phlegm of a Hollander, ’let us go first to the wedding, and then this pasty can be warmed up.’

“‘Warmed up!’ roared I; ’warm up this pie, whose delicious odor has already brought my nose into its magic circle!  Can you believe I would outlive such a vandalism, that I would consent to such sacrilege?  To warm a pie!—­it is to rob the blossom of its fragrance, the butterfly of the purple and azure of its wings, beauty of its innocence, the golden day of its glory.  No, I will never be guilty of such deadly crime!  This pie thirsts to be eaten!  I will, therefore, eat it!’

“I ate it, sire, and it overpowered me with heavenly rapture.  I was like the opium-eater, wrapped in elysium, carried into the heaven of heavens.  All the wonders of creation were combined in this heavenly food, which I thrust into my mouth devoutly, and trembling with gladness.  It was not necessary for Mieritz to tell me that this pie was made of Indian birds’-nests, and truffles from Perigord.  I knew it—­I felt it!  This wonder of India had unveiled my enraptured eyes!  A new world was opened before me!  I ate, and I was blessed!

“What was it to me that messenger after messenger came to summon me, to inform me that the priest stood before the altar; that my young bride and her father and a crowd of relations awaited me with impatience?  I cried back to them:  ’Go! be off with you!  Let them wait till the judgment-day!  I will not rise from this seat till this dish is empty!’ I ate on, and while eating my intellect was clearer, sharper, more profound than ever before!  I rejoiced over this conviction.  Was it not a conclusive proof that my theory was correct, that this ‘homme machine’ received its intellectual fluid, its power of thought through itself, and not through this fabulous, bodiless something which metaphysicians call soul?  Was not this a proof that, to possess a noble soul, it was only necessary to give to the body noble nourishment?  And where lies this boasted soul? where else but in the stomach?  The stomach is the soul; I allow it is the brain that thinks, but the brain dares only think as his exalted majesty the stomach allows; and if his royal highness feels unwell, farewell to thought.” [Footnote:  La Mettrie’s own words.]

The whole company burst out in loud and hearty laughter.

“Am I not right to call you a fou fieffe?” said the king.  “There is an old proverb, which says of a coward, that his heart lies in his stomach; never before have I heard the soul banished there.  But your hymns of praise over the stomach and the pie have made you forget to finish your story; let us hear the conclusion!  Did the marriage take place?”