Such is the elucidation given of the phantasmagoria by an intelligent observer, whose friend favoured me with this communication.

LETTER XXXVII.

Paris, December 21, 1801.

IF Paris affords a thousand enjoyments to the man of fortune, it may truly be said that, without money, Paris is the most melancholy abode in the world. Privations are then the more painful, because desires and even wants are rendered more poignant by the ostentatious display of every object which might satisfy them. What more cruel for an unfortunate fellow, with an empty purse, than to pass by the kitchen of a restaurateur, when, pinched by hunger, he has not the means of procuring himself a dinner? His olfactory nerves being still more readily affected when his stomach is empty, far from affording him a pleasing sensation, then serve only to sharpen the torment which he suffers. It is worse than the punishinent of Tantalus, who, dying with thirst, could not drink, though up to his chin in water.

Really, my dear friend, I would advise every rich epicure to fix his residence in this city. Without being plagued by the details of house

keeping, or even at the trouble of looking at a bill of fare, he might feast his eye, and his appetite too, on the inviting plumpness of a turkey, stuffed with truffles. A boar's head set before him, with a Seville orange between its tusks, might make him fancy that he was discussing the greatest interests of mankind at the table of an Austrian Prime Minister, or British Secretary of State; while pútés of Chartres or of Périgord hold out to his discriminating palate all the refinements of French seasoning. These, and an endless variety of other dainties, no less tempting, might he contemplate here, in walking past a magazin de comestibles of provision-warehouse.

Among the changes introduced here, within these few years, I had heard much of the improvements in the culinary art, or rather in the manner of serving up its productions; but, on my first arrival in Paris, I was so constantly engaged in a succession of dinner-parties, that some time elapsed before I could avail myself of an opportunity of dining at the house of any of the fashionable

RESTAURATEURS,

This is a title of no very ancient date in Paris. Traiteurs. have long existed here: independently of furnishing repasts at home, these

traiteurs, like Birch in Cornhill, or any other famous London cook, sent out dinners and sup> pers. But, in 1765, one BOULANGER conceived the idea of restoring the exhausted animal functions of the debilitated Parisians by rich soups of various denominations. Not being a traiteur, it appears that he was not authorized to serve ragouts; he therefore, in addition to his restorative soups, set before his customers new-laid eggs and boiled fowl with strong gravy sauce: those articles were served up without a cloth, on little marble tables. Over his door he placed the following inscription, borrowed from Scripture: "Venite ad me omnes qui stomacho laboratis, et 6c ego restaurabo vos."

Such was the origin of the word and profession of restaurateur.

Other cooks, in imitation of BOULANGER, set up as restorers, on a similar plan, in all the places of public entertainment where such establishments were admissible. Novelty, fashion, and, above all, dearness, brought them into vogue. Many a person who would have been ashamed to be seen going into a traiteur's, made no hesitation of entering a restaurateur's, where he paid nearly double the price for a dinner of the same description. However, as, in all trades, it is the great number of customers that enrich the trader, rather than the select few, the restaurateurs, in

order to make their business answer, were soon under the necessity of constituting themselves traiteurs; so that, in lieu of one title, they now possess two; and this is the grand result of the primitive establishment.

At the head of the most noted restaurateurs in Paris, previously to the revolution, was LA BARRIÈRE, in the ci-devant Palais Royal; but, though his larder was always provided with choice food, his cellar furnished with good wines, his bill of fare long, and the number of his customers considerable, yet his profits, he said, were not sufficiently great to allow him to cover his. tables with linen. This omission was supplied by green wax cloth; a piece of economy which, he declared, produced him a saving of near 10,000 livres (circa 400 sterling) per annum in the single article of washing. Hence you may form an idea of the extent of such an undertaking. I have often dined at LA BARRIERE'S, and was always well served, at a moderate charge, and with remarkable expedition. Much about that time, BEAUVILLIERS, who had opened, within the same precincts, a similar establishment, but on a more refined plan, proved a most formidable rival to La BARRIERE, and at length eclipsed him.

After a lapse of almost eleven years, I again find this identical BEAUVILLIERS still in the full enjoyment of the greatest celebrity. ROBERT

and NAUDET in the Palais du Tribunat, and VERY on the Terrace des Feuillans, dispute with him the palm in the art of Apicius. All these, it is true, furnish excellent repasts, and their wines are not inferior to their cooking: but, after more than one impartial trial, I think I am justified in giving the preference to BEAUVILLIERS. Let us then take a view of his arrangements: this, with a few variations in price or quality, will serve as a general picture of the ars coquinaria in Paris.

On the first floor of a large hotel, formerly occupied, perhaps, by a farmer-general, you enter a suite of apartments, decorated with arabesques, and mirrors of large dimensions, in a style no less elegant than splendid, where tables are completely arranged for large or small parties. In winter, these rooms are warmed by ornamental støves, and lighted by quinquets, a species of Argand's lamps. They are capable of accommodating from two hundred and fifty to three hundred persons, and, at this time of the year, the average number that dine here daily is about two hundred; in summer, it is considerably decreased by the attractions of the country, and the parties of pleasure made, in consequence, to the environs of the capital.

On the left hand, as you pass into the first room, rises a sort of throne, not unlike the estrado in the grand audience-chamber of a Spanish