The frontispiece of the fourth year, entitled "Meditations of a Gourmand," represents La Reynière in person seated at a writing-table in his robe de chambre. He has evidently just suspended his labours to reconsider the materials which are to form the subjects of his homilies. The different objects of his contemplation are ranged around him on various stands: a stuffed calf's head, a roasted capon, a matelote of La Râpée, a Strassburg pâté de foie gras, a plate of biscuits of Abbeville, etc., his attention being engrossed for the moment by the calf's head. Various treatises on the alimentary art are scattered about him, such as "La Pâtisserie de Santé," "Les Dons de Comus," and "Le Confiseur Moderne." Upon the edicts he is to pronounce hangs the fate of many a purveyor. Is his appetite keyed to the requirements of his task? Will the samples to be tested respond to the exactions of his critical palate? Or must his fealty be paid for by an indigestion that may postpone his labours in behalf of the noblest of the arts? [Illustration: LES MÉDITATIONS D'UN GOURMAND Frontispiece of the fourth year of the "Almanach des Gourmands"] His mien is solemn and his attitude one of intense absorption, like that of a great statesman pondering some weighty coup d'état. At the end of the cabinet stands a tall buffet with numerous shelves laden with savoury viands and appetising beverages: a boar's head of Troyes, a timbale of red partridges _aux truffes_, eels of Melun, a cake of Savoy, a _mortadelle_ of Lyons, a truffled turkey of Périgord, an Italian cheese and sausages, a ham of Bayonne, a pâté of Périgueux, various dainties of Provence, pastries and apple-jelly of Rouen, with numerous varieties of wines and liqueurs. All of these articles, gravely observes the editor in his explanation of the plate, are to be successively passed in review by the gourmand, inasmuch as they are the subjects of his literary work--no other objects of art decorate the cabinet, as nothing should be allowed to distract the critic. It would appear at first sight to the uninitiated that such a task must prove beyond the capacities of the ordinary mortal. But this contingency he has already explained at length in a chapter on "Indigestion." "It is often much less to excess of eating than to the quality of aliments that indigestion is due. One person may have eaten ten times more than another without inconvenience, and another find himself seriously disturbed from having partaken of a single dish that did not agree. It is the place of the epicure to study the nature of his stomach, in order to supply it with only such aliments as are homogeneous. Milk foods, hot pastries, etc., which usually agree with women, do not always agree with robust stomachs which may be able to digest an ox, but quail before a little pot of cream. But where through repeated experiences one has obtained a perfect knowledge of his temperament he may trust to his appetite without fear."