The better to perfect himself in its various branches, he studied for ten years under the most distinguished masters, including Robert and Laguipière. For years, also, he was a daily student at the Imperial Library and Cabinet of Engravings, perfecting himself in drawing and in the literature of his profession. He likewise made an exhaustive study of old Roman cookery, only to arrive at the conclusion that it was intrinsically bad and abominably heavy (_foncièrement mauvaise et atrocement lourde_)--an opinion confirmed by the Marquis de Cussy, who declared that he would rather dine at a Parisian restaurant for twenty francs than with Lucullus in the saloon of Apollo. It was Carême's habit to take notes nightly of his progress and the modifications he had made in his work during the day, thereby fixing those ideas and combinations that otherwise would have escaped his memory. Amid the luxurious kitchens of the Empire he reigned supreme--the king of pastry-cooks and marvellous in his sauces, galantines, and inventions. Crowned heads soon became his suitors, and princes implored his services. It was Talleyrand, one of the wittiest and most epicurean princes of the Empire, who inspired him perhaps with his greatest enthusiasm, and of whom he says, "M. de Talleyrand understands the genius of a cook, he respects it, he is the most competent judge of delicate progress, and _his expenditures are wise and great at the same time_." Of Laguipière, the chief cook of Murat, to whose talents he ascribes the elegance and éclat of the culinary art of the nineteenth century, he is unstinted in his praises. Of Beauvilliers he has little to say, and although a volume appeared bearing the combined names of Beauvilliers and Carême, one fancies that the proverbial jealousy of cooks was not wanting in their case.