Soyer's Culinary Campaign: Being Historical Reminiscences of the Late War.: With The Plain Art of Cookery for Military and Civil Institutions

assorti. Salades d’oranges. Compotes de poires. Figues, raisins, amandes, &c. My engineer, Tom Shell-proof, as we afterwards called him, undertook to gallop round to the various regimental kitchens, and see that all was in order.[27] This brought to my recollection the applicable and pithy remark made by my friend Mr. Charles Pierce, who, in the preface of his valuable work entitled _The Household Manager_,[28] says that “The warrior general who looks forward to the successful termination of his coming engagement, first, with careful study and practised thought, views in prescience each possible exigency, and provides a means to meet it, strategically considering the country in which his scene of action is laid, and the appliances in all respects necessary to his victory.” The school from which the author of the above-quoted work emanates is Chirk Castle, where, upwards of twenty years ago, I first made his acquaintance. His then young master, Colonel Myddleton Biddulph, is the present Master of the Household to her Majesty. Mr. Pierce was himself afterwards attached to the household of the reigning Duke of Lucca, and was fellow-servant and a most intimate friend of Baron Ward, who ultimately became not only Master of the Household, but Prime Minister, to the Duke of Parma. Mr. Pierce himself, as is well known, is _maître d’hôtel_ to the Russian Embassy. At ten to the minute, the Russians arrived. After the introduction, the guests sat down, and every jaw was soon doing its best; for in less than twenty minutes there were only the names of the various dishes to be seen, and they were upon the bill of fare--which was not eaten. The Russian general, who has only one arm, ate as much as two men with the use of both. A servant waited upon him, and carved his meat. Better looking men I have seen, but not more military. He seemed as hard and as round as a cannon-ball. Between three and five was the general’s hour of rising in time of peace. When he told me this, I said, “Then I suppose in war-time you don’t lie