French gastronomic science seemed to have reserved all her masterpieces for Kemeny's banquet. Nature's three kingdoms have been laid under contribution to tickle the human palate. Every extravagant and extraordinary delicacy invented by Epicureanism, from the days of Lucullus to the days of Gallic gourmandism, is here in abundance. Here is to be seen every sort of foreign and domestic wine, in artistically-carved and gorgeously-coloured Venetian flasks, placed in huge silver refrigerators; game, large and small, of the rarest kind, on silver dishes; transparent, rose-coloured, quivering jellies with names unpronounceable by Hungarian lips; Indian fruits preserved in cane sugar; _ragoûts_ of cocks' combs; enigmatical-looking snails, fit rather for the eye than for the palate; gigantic lobsters and the rarer kinds of marine fish fantastically disposed; meats which men who have already eaten to surfeit can only make believe that they enjoy by a supreme effort of the imagination; dishes which a true man would only eat by way of penance; immense pasties made entirely of pikes' livers; large baskets of rosy swans' eggs, which the guests may boil for amusement in little silver egg-boilers placed over spirit-lamps in front of them, and other wonderful dishes innumerable, the purpose of which is not immediately obvious to ordinary children of men, and everything in such profusion as would have more than sufficed for six times the number of guests present. Then too there were there all sorts of spiced drinks to suit every one's taste, from punch-royal to Polish brandy. Nothing was forgotten. Behind every guest stands a little page, who whisks away his well-filled plate from him the instant he turns his head, and places before him a clean one instead. Behind the Prince's chair stands the son of Count Ladislaus Csaky, who is right proud that a son of his should have the privilege of filling and refilling the Prince's pocal.