As the quotation of recipes would call for considerable space, it may be wise to dispense with any further illustrations in the instance of the above-mentioned artists, and pass at once to the French author of the never-failing grace whose grand "Dictionary of Cookery" is marked by that felicity of expression and fecundity of invention so characteristic of all his works. From the somewhat stilted style of Soyer it becomes doubly pleasing to turn to the laughing pages of Dumas, at once suggestive and inspiring, pointed in paragraph and scintillant with anecdote.[28] The author of "Monte Cristo" and "The Three Musketeers" has also left an illustrious name as a cook, a host, and an epicure. And if, of all celebrated artists, it might be Carême whom one would wish to prepare the dinner, who more delightful than Dumas as a vis-à-vis at the repast? But his expansive smile and his _bonhomie_ are reflected in his writings, and his "intuition of all" is no less apparent when dealing with cookery than when detailing the intrigues of cardinals and courtiers. A Chartreuse becomes as important as the missing necklace of a queen, and the theory of frying no less momentous than the fate of the prisoner of the Château d'If. As Octave Lacroix has phrased it, "Assuredly it is a great attainment to be a romancist, but it is by no means a mediocre glory to be a cook.... Romancist or cook, Alexandre Dumas is a chef, and the two vocations appear in him to go hand in hand, or rather to be joined in one." The two introductory epistles, an anecdotal review of the art, are among the most felicitous in the language. Nor should we forget the many references to the table in the "Impressions de Voyage" and numerous other volumes. The Marquis de Cussy, Jules Janin, Charles Monselet, and others have treated the same subject at more or less length, but none of them so comprehensively. "I wish to conclude," Dumas often said, "my literary work of five hundred volumes by a work on cookery." This was his great ambition, and to it he devoted his most zealous efforts. "I see with pleasure," he remarks in one of his volumes, "that my culinary reputation is increasing, and soon promises to efface my literary reputation.... I therefore make the announcement that as soon as I am freed from the claims of certain editors I will show you a book of practical cookery by which the most ignorant in matters gastronomical will be able to prepare, as easily as my honourable friend Vuillemot, an _espagnole_ or a _mirepoix_."[29]