_Se non è vero è ben trovato_--the madeleine still remains to gladden the traveller. They bring it now in little boxes of a dozen--flat on the top and grooved like a shell underneath, the colour a rich golden brown--as the train halts for a moment at the town on the Meuse where Cardinal de Retz wrote his memoirs. One of the earliest of German cook-books, published at Strassburg in 1516, and now of the utmost rarity, bears for its title "Kuchenmeisterey," or the mastery of cake-making. Perchance were one to turn its faded Gothic leaves, some forgotten master-stroke of the baker might reveal itself, to vie with the madeleine in popularity and add to the already endless list of farinaceous _Leckerbissen_ and _Frauenessen_, wherein the Germans have no superiors. The story of the madeleine suggests that of the Vienna roll, which, it is said, owes its origin to the investment of Vienna by the Turks. During the protracted siege of the city, when the town had become almost reduced to starvation and the position of the enemy was unknown, a baker was making his last batch of bread. His little son, who had been amusing himself with his marbles and drum, had gone to bed, leaving a marble on the drum-head. The baker kept on with his baking and attending to his ovens, sitting down between times to meditate on his probable fate when the final loaf was gone, and gleaming cangiars and ferocious janizaries had begun their work of carnage. Suddenly his attentive ear was arrested by an unaccustomed vibratory sound proceeding from the drum, while his eye perceived a continuous dancing movement of the marble. Soon it became apparent to him that the vibration was caused by forces working on the fortifications without--the steady pounding of mattock and pickaxe--and that the undermining of the walls had begun almost at his door. At once his loaves were forgotten, and, hastening to spread the alarm, the enemy was attacked unawares and successfully routed. The following day the baker was summoned before the emperor. "What reward do you claim for your services?--you have saved the city," said the emperor. "I would serve the bread for the palace," replied the artist of the loaves, "and I would have my rolls shaped like the Crescent we have conquered." A favourite convivial song of the Fatherland, with its rollicking strain, may not be omitted from a German Speisekarte. The words are by a former minister of education, von Muehler, of Prussia; the music that of the dance "La Madrilena." It should be sung in chorus and led by one who is light on his feet and a master of the side-step, with the sonorous instrumentation of viols and horns to lend it additional spirit and swing: BEDENKLICHKEITEN (Heinrich von Muehler, 1842. Bis 1872 Preussischer Cultusminister.) [Illustration: _Munter._ Spanischer Tanz: La Madrilena.