In regard to food, the prisoners are unanimous in declaring that it was abundant and good. "I had five dishes at dinner," says Dumouriez, "and five at supper, without reckoning dessert." The Provost de Beaumont declared that he had quitted the Bastille with regret, because there he had been able to eat and drink to his heart's content. Poultier d'Elmotte says: "M. de Launey had many a friendly chat with me, and sent me what dishes I wished for." Baron Hennequin, a hypochondriac who found fault with everything, confesses nevertheless that they gave him more meat than he could eat. The Abbé de Buquoy affirms that he fared sumptuously, and that it was the king's intention that the prisoners should be well fed. The splenetic Linguet owns, in his pamphlet, that he had three good meals a day, and that meat was supplied to him in such quantities that his suspicions were aroused: "They meant to poison me!" he says. But he omits to say that de Launey sent him every morning the menu for the day, on which he marked down with his own hand the dishes he fancied, "choosing always the most dainty, and in sufficient quantities to have satisfied five or six epicures." In Louis XIV.'s time, Renneville drew up the following list of dishes served to him: "Oysters, prawns, fowls, capons, mutton, veal, young pigeons; forcemeat pies and patties; asparagus, cauliflower, green peas, artichokes; salmon, soles, pike, trout, every kind of fish whether fresh-water or salt; pastry, and fruits in their season." We find Latude complaining that the fowls given him were not stuffed! M. Funck-Brentano tells the amusing story of Marmontel's eating by mistake the dinner intended for his servant, and finding it excellent. Mdlle. de Launay, afterwards Madame de Staal, who was imprisoned for complicity in the Cellamare[7] plot, relates that on the first evening of her sojourn in the Bastille, she and her maid were both terrified by the strange and prolonged sound, beneath their feet, of a mysterious machine, which conjured up visions of an instrument of torture. When they came to inquire, they found that their room was over the kitchen, and the terrible machine was the roasting-jack! The prisoners were not only allowed to receive visits from their relations and friends, but to keep them to dinner or to make up a rubber. Thus Madame de Staal held receptions in the afternoon, and in the evening there was high play. "And this time," she says, "was the happiest in my life." Bussy-Rabutin received the whole court, and all his friends--especially those of the fair sex. M. de Bonrepos--an assumed name--was so comfortable in the Bastille that when he was directed to retire to the Invalides,[8] he could only be removed by force. "I there spent six weeks," says Morellet, "so pleasantly, that I chuckle to this day when I think of them." And when he left, he exclaimed: "God rest those jolly tyrants!"