"Tel on voit, au moment d'une sanglante affaire, Un prudent général mesurer la carrière. Son courage tranquille et sa noble fierté Commandent l'espérance et la sécurité. La foule l'environne et presse son armure, D'un trouble involontaire il entend le murmure; Peut-être un peu d'effroi s'est glissé dans son sein, Mais son visage est calme, et son front serein." The pictures he has drawn of the dinner and its service, and his counsels regarding moderation and sobriety, are equally felicitous. Though he himself was no Sybarite, but, like Savarin, was only a gourmand when he had his pen in hand, he is none the less severe on the dietarians: "En se privant de tout, ils pensent se guérir, Et se donnent la mort par la peur de mourir." Nor has he failed to extol the virtues of exercise, that most potent abettor of health and aid to enjoyment: "D'un noble appétit munissez-vous d'avance, Sans lui vous gémirez au sein de l'abondance; II est un moyen sûr d'acquérir ce tresor: L'exercise, messieurs, et l'exercise encore: Allez tous les matins sur les pas de Diane, Armés d'un long fusil ou d'une sarbacane, Epier le canard au bord de vos marais; Allez lancer la biche au milieu des forêts; Poursuivez le chevreuil s'élançant dans la plaine; Suivez vos chiens ardents que leur courage entraîne. Partagez sans rougir de champêtres travaux, Et ne dédaignez pas ou la bêche ou la faux." It were in vain to look for a better dining-room motto than his precept: "Rien ne doit déranger l'honnête homme qui dîne;"[13] or his hygienic maxim: "Jouissez lentement, et que rien ne vous presse." Like good wine, his canto has not lost its fragrance through age, and those who read it will almost be inclined to doubt the truth of the concluding line: "Un poème ne valut jamais un dîner--" unless it be a _dîner sans façon_, which he has not failed to condemn. Of other tributes in verse to gastronomy, Colnet's "l'Art de Dîner en Ville"[14] is the next important, but this is by no means to be compared with the canto of Berchoux. And though the language abounds in minor poems on the subject, few of these may be considered seriously, while nearly all offend by their grossness or their halting measures. Napoleon Bonaparte was not an epicure, though he enjoined upon all the great functionaries of the empire to set a good table. He was in constant dread of growing obese as he became old, was proverbially irregular in his hours of eating, and rushed his food as he would a battalion on the battle-field. His repasts concerned him little so long as they were served the instant his appetite craved, and were accompanied by his favourite Chambertin.