Before I go a step further in this narrative I must really animadvert to the subject of restaurants and the _haute cuisine_ of France generally, for in this matter Barfleur was as keen as the greatest connoisseurs are in the matter of pictures. He loved and remembered the quality of dishes and the method of their preparation and the character of the men who prepared them and the atmosphere in which they were prepared and in fact everything which relates to the culinary and gastronomic arts and the history of the gourmet generally. In Paris and London Barfleur was constantly talking of the restaurants of importance and contrasting the borrowed French atmosphere of the best English restaurants with the glories of the parent kitchens in France. He literally schooled me in the distinction which was to be drawn between the Café Anglais, Voisin’s and Paillard’s, and those smart after-supper restaurants of the Montmartre district where the cuisine of France had been degraded by the addition of negroes, tinsel, dancers, and music. Nevertheless he was willing to admit that their cuisine was not bad. As I remember it now, I was advised to breakfast at Henry’s, to dine at the Ritz, and to sup at Durand’s; but if I chose to substitute the Café de Paris for the Ritz at dinner I was not going far wrong. He knew that M. Braquesec, the younger, was now in charge of Voisin’s and that Paul was the _maître d’hôtel_ and that during the Commune Voisin’s had once served _consommé d’éléphant_, _le chameau roti à l’Anglais_, and _le chat planqué de rats_. He thought it must have been quite excellent because M. Braquesec, the elder, supervised it all and because the wines served with it were from twenty to forty years of age.