their festivals savages decide on war and peace; we need not go
far to know that villages decide on all public affairs at the
cabinet.

This observation has not escaped those to whom the weightiest
affairs are often confided. They saw that a full stomached
individual was very different from a fasting one; that the table
established a kind of alliance between the parties, and made
guests more apt to receive certain impressions and submit to
certain influences. This was the origin of political gastronomy.
Entertainments have become governmental measures, and the fate of
nations is decided on in a banquet. This is neither a paradox nor
a novelty but a simple observation of fact. Open every historian,
from the time of Herodotus to our own days, and it will be seen
that, not even excepting conspiracies, no great event ever took
place, not conceived, prepared and arranged at a festival.

GASTRONOMICAL ACADEMY.

Such, at the first glance, appears to be the domain of gastronomy,
a realm fertile in results of every kind and which is aggrandized
by the discoveries and inventions of those who cultivate it. It is
certain that before the lapse of many years, gastronomy will have
its academicians, courses, professors, and premiums.

At first some rich and zealous gastronomer will establish
periodical assemblies, in which the most learned theorists will
unite with artists, to discuss and measure the various branches of
alimentation.