My own experience of foreign tables d’hôte now goes back fifty years, having begun at Paris, 15 September 1867, with a table d’hôte of four hundred people at the Louvre Hotel--then in the old building on the other side of the street. So far as I can judge, the meals used generally to be better than they are, and they certainly were more abundant. The decline had begun before my time. After dining at the table d’hôte at Meurice’s, my father notes in his diary, 3 September 1863:--“Not so good a dinner as they used to give there five-and-twenty years ago.” At the table d’hôte at Blinzler’s at Godesberg, 25 August 1852, the courses were:--“1, soup; 2, roast beef and potatoes; 3, mutton cutlets and vegetables; 4, fish and sauces; 5, ducks and salads; 6, hare and stewed fruits; 7, roast veal and salads; 8, shell-fish and puddings; 9, fruits, sweetmeats and cheese.” Innkeepers have changed their policy. They used to make their profit on the table d’hôte, and they find they can do better now with people dining à la carte. In those days it literally was table d’hôte, mine host sitting at the head of the table, and being helped first to make quite sure that everything was good. I saw this done at the Cloche at Dijon so recently as 9 August 1912; but it was a long while since I had seen this anywhere else. The queerest table d’hôte I ever saw, was at the Singe d’Or at Tournai, 26 March 1875. That was Good Friday; and it was a first-rate fish-dinner, lasting close upon three hours. There were eighty people there, mostly from the town, as there were few travellers about, and we were the only English. The citizens went steadily through the fifteen courses, and drank dozens of champagne, and then went home with a good conscience, feeling they had carried out the precepts of the Church in having a meatless day. In ordering wine at small hotels my father had a rule, which I have followed with success:--Always order the wine of the country. You will get the wine of the country in any event, whatever you may have ordered; and, if you order it under its own name, you may get it unadulterated. * * * * *