Drawing himself up, the speaker announced with the most profound solemnity, "Gentlemen, I must preface my remarks by stating how I consider that a cook who discovers a new dish deserves a seat in the Institute more than a man who discovers a new star...." Loud were the interruptions of horror which burst from the Members of the Institute, who, to the unutterable amusement of Stanhope and certain of his friends, took the remark literally. "_Que me fait une étoile?_" continued de Baure with impassioned eloquence. "_Que me fait une étoile_ whilst a chef who discovers a new dish which tempts me to begin again after I have satisfied my appetite confers upon me the greatest obligation which it lies in the power of one human being to confer upon another!" [2] Urged by his grave and astounded colleagues to elaborate his reasons for his extraordinary statement, de Baure declined on the following ground: "A king of France," he said, "was passing through a provincial town when a pompous mayor, addressing his Majesty, regretted that he had twenty very urgent reasons for not having fired the guns in honour of the Royal visit, the first of which was that he had not any powder. 'Stop there!' said the King, 'I will excuse you the other nineteen.'" Another Frenchman, of a very different type, who was a friend of John Stanhope at this date, was the young Comte de St. Morys, of whose tragic fate, so illustrative of the conditions then prevalent in France, Stanhope subsequently gave the following account:-- "The Comte de St. Morys had been an _émigré_ at the period of the Revolution. His mother, however, had not accompanied her husband during that exile, and, in consequence, had succeeded eventually in preventing the confiscation of some of his property. When, later, Napoleon adopted the course of gathering round his throne as many of the old _noblesse_ as he could, he conveyed the hint to Madame de St. Morys that, unless her son returned, the remainder of her property should be confiscated. In consequence of this notification the young Comte deemed it his duty to return to his native land, and he established himself in the _basse-cour_ of his former home, which was all of the château which now remained. "Unfortunately for him, the rest of the property had been sold to a man whose character may be best described by stating that he had been a branded fellow. A good understanding was not likely to exist between men of such opposite principles, and St. Morys, although he possessed the kindest and the warmest heart, was rather of a hasty disposition, and had a little more brusquerie of manner than is generally found among Frenchmen of his rank. What may have been the first, or the principal cause of the dispute, I know not, but, from what I heard, it appeared to me most probable that the object of Colonel Barbier de Fay was to compel Monsieur de St. Morys to give him a high price for his land in order to get rid of so disagreeable a neighbour.