The Physiology of Taste by Anthelme Jean Brillat-Savarin Read Free Book Online Page B

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,