Carême has modified the adage _on se fait cuisinier, mais on est né rôtisseur_, claiming that to become a perfect cook one must first be a distinguished pastry-maker, and citing as instances his favourite teacher Laguipière, with Robert, Lasne, Riquette, and numerous other celebrities. He speaks of the "lightness," the "grace," and the "colour" of pastry; of the "order, perspicuity, and intelligence" required in its preparation. "It is easier," he says, "to cook pastry than to make it.... There are ovens and ovens (_fours_). There is the _four chaud_; there is the _four gai_; there is the _four chaleur modérée_. The best oven is that which is often heated and which retains its heat. If there is too much loft and too little floor, or much floor and little loft, only meagre results may be expected." When one orders a _vol-au-vent à la financière_ or a _pâté d'écrevisses_ (that triumph of Orléans) at a restaurant, therefore, it will be perceived it becomes a question of the oven as well as the capacity of the artist directing it that counts in the success, and which the conscientious diner should take into consideration ere finding fault with the _addition_. Again, the analogy between cookery and painting becomes apparent. Thus the conditions noted by Carême find a parallel in the artist endowed with a vivid imagination, but possessed of only mediocre technique; or a painter whose feeling may be admirable, but whose execution is deficient. The _four gai_--how it suggests a landscape of Cuyp steeped in the splendours of the setting sun--to say nothing of a nicely gilded omelette or a soufflé of apricots! To _glacer à la flamme_, as Carême expressed it, calls for a _four d'enfer_, and one has in mind a _crême gelée d'Alaska_, with the fire managed by a Mephistopheles. Let the cook and the painter continue to lay on the colours gaily--the one with his _braise_ and the other with his brush. Art is art always, and finds its sure reward in whatever sphere talent, conscientiousness, and application are united. In the autobiographic preface of the "Cuisinier Parisien" an instance is cited of the care and variety which the author claims every industrious cook should bring to bear in his work, in order to excite the appetite of the amphitryon: "One day the Prince-Regent of England, whom I served, said to me, 'Carême, you will make me die of indigestion; I am fond of everything you give me, and you tempt me too much.' 'Monseigneur,' I replied, 'my principal office is to challenge your appetite by the variety of my service; but it is not my affair to regulate it.' The prince smiled, saying that I was right, and I continued to supply him with the best."