“Nam pransus, jaceo, et satur supinus,

 Pertimdo tunicamque, palliumque.”

When Christianity had acquired some power, its priests lifted up their voices against intemperance.  They declaimed against the length of meals which violated all prudence by surrounding persons by every species of voluptuousness.  Devoted by choice to an austere regimen, they placed gourmandise in the list of capital sins, and rigidly commented on the mingling of sexes and the use of beds, a habit which they said produced the luxury they deplored.

Their menacing voice was heard; couches disappeared, and the old habit of eating sitting, was restored.  Fortunately this did not violate the demands of pleasure.

Poetry.

Convivial poetry then underwent a new modification, and in the mouths of Horace and Tibullus assumed a languor the Greeks were ignorant of.

 Dulce ridentem Lalagem amabo,

  Dulce luquentem.

        Hor.

 Quaeris quot mihi batiationes

  Tuae, Lesbia, sint satis superque.

        Cat.

 Pande, puella, pande capillulos

 Mavos, lucentus ut aurum nitidum.

 Pande, puella, collum candidum

 Productum bene candidis humeris.

        Gallus.

Irruption of the barbarians.

The five or six centuries we shall run over in a few pages, were glorious days for the cuisine; the irruption however of northern men overturned and destroyed everything.

When the strangers appeared, alimentary art made its appearance, as did the others that are its companions.  The greater portion of the cooks were massacred in the palaces they served.  The foreigners came and they were able to eat as much in an hour as civilized people did in a week.

Although that which is excessive is not durable—­conquerors are always cruel.  They united themselves with the victors, who received some tints of civilization, and began to know the pleasures of civilized life.

* * * * * * *

About the seventeenth century, the Dutch imported coffee into Europe.  Solyman Agu, a Turk, whom our great, great grandfathers well remember, sold the first cups in 1760.  An American sold it in 1670, and dealt it out from a marble bar, as we see now.

The use of coffee then dates from the eighteenth century.  Distillation, introduced by the crusades, remained arcana, with few adepts.  About the commencement of the reign of Louis XIV, alambics became more common, but not until the time of Louis XV., did the drink become really popular.

About the same time the use of tobacco was introduced.  So that sugar, coffee and tobacco, the three most important articles of luxury in Europe, are scarcely two centuries old.

[The translator here omits a whole Meditation.  It would now be scarcely pleasant.]