Sceptics were they who, revelling at the table of Louis XIV in the sauces of a Bechamel, or lingering at the board of the great Condé over the chefs d'œuvre of a Vatel—that illustrious martyr to a point of culinary honour!—or inhaling gently and delicately, and degustating slowly, and with marvellous discrimination, the exquisite and quintessential results of the vigils of an Ude, who refused, in their turns, to believe that the science professed by these great men could be capable of improvement, or was susceptible of higher elevation.