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

to your art. Humiliation and dishonour awaited you; and Death--yes, Death! god of Starvation, with his frail, bony limbs--was grinning at you. Fortunately you lived in an era of gastronomic grandeur, when a _chef de cuisine_ bore a high rank, and had your own aristocratic weapon wherewith to do the noble deed which gilds your name. The gallant Colonel de Bathe was the first to arrive, with plenty of musical support. The programme was settled. Each noble general, as he arrived, was received _à la militaire_, not, as the song says, “sans tambour ni trompette,” but _sans cérémonie_. Every one being acquainted, introductions were not necessary. At half-past nine the band, which had performed all the while, ceased playing, and the grand madrigal concert commenced, followed by glees, &c., and at intervals the band played lively quadrilles, polkas, &c., till eleven o’clock, when the supper took place. The band melodiously accompanied the knife-and-fork chorus, the champagne galop, and pop, pop of the confined corks. Shortly after, the amiable Lord Rokeby, who had kindly undertaken the office of chairman, made a most affable and, to me, interesting speech, dilating in high and flattering terms upon my mission to the East. After supper, the band again ceased, and, while they enjoyed their nocturnal repast, madrigals, glees, duets, solos, &c., followed in rapid succession. All of a sudden (I happened at the time to be in the back room) an alarm was given by General Wyndham, who called out, “Soyer, Soyer, your hut is on fire!” The general was getting up, when a young officer sprang from beam to beam till he reached the top of the hut, where a large paper lantern had taken fire and ignited the roof. My principal fear was for my picture, painted by the late Madame Soyer, called the “Young Bavarian;” which was the admiration of all my Crimean visitors, and well known in London amongst the connoisseurs, having repurchased it at the sale of the great Saltmarsh collection, at Messrs. Christie and Mason’s, in the year 1846--(subsequently, when travelling in the South of France, I met