Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/200

 hearty, and ordering his dinner even as he shouted a greeting! Then would follow the jolliest of dinner-parties, everyone crowding round the table to exchange banter and chaff with the "King of Paris," who was happy and content to be hail-fellow-well-met with the poorest peasant in Villers-Cotterets.

It has been made a subject of reproach against Dumas—and which of his qualities has not been made use of in that way?—that he knew how to "cook his hare" after he had caught it. This prejudice is especially strong in England, where the word gourmet is confused with gourmand, and popularly translated to mean "glutton." Ordinarily, the writer lived simply, and if he knew how food could best be cooked, if he liked it cooked well instead of badly, and if he had the skill to cook it himself, there is surely no need to think any the worse of him. He was not (pace Stevenson) a "great eater" in the sense of eating much; he boasted of his appetite, is true, but there is no reason to believe that it was out of proportion to his giant frame and the enormous amount of work he got through. So much of a "glutton," in short, was our Dumas, that when engrossed in his writing he refused to stop to take food; whatever his servant chose to prepare for him was placed at his elbow, and he ate mechanically as he wrote on and on!