“Whoever did not live in the years before 1789 can never know how sweet life could be!” exclaimed Charles Maurice Talleyrand-Périgord. Up to then, a primary source of happiness in France, certainly for some, was the daily ritual of eating well. In the years following, Eugène Briffault tells us in his 1846 work, Paris à table (“Paris at the Table”), the Revolution’s leaders were remembered “as being sober and showing little concern for the pleasures of the table.” Those who showed, whether by birth or inclination, insufficient civic enthusiasm paid a heavy price. But even when awaiting execution for incivisme, many of Talleyrand’s noble colleagues clung to the last vestiges of that sweet life, ordering salmis de bécasse and bottles of Volnay into their cells. One condemned, the Duc de Lauzun, showed wonderful panache when he invited his executioner, “Take some wine, you’ll need it for the job you have to do.”

Talleyrand was lucky enough to have escaped France during the worst of the Revolution. Many fleeing aristocrats left large household staffs behind, including their cooks and pastry chefs. The more talented of these joined the new restaurant profession, but, given their previous associations, this could be risky. Georges Couthon, a member of the fearsome Committee for Public Safety, pronounced it necessary to inspect the prices of certain restaurants as “those who prepare [expensive] meals and those who eat them are equally suspect.” Revolutionary ardor conquered even those things quintessentially French: Couthon’s and Robespierre’s colleague,