In 1671, the Duc de Condé, Louis XIV’s uncle, and for that reason properly addressed as Monsieur le Prince (Mr. Prince), completed a major restoration of his chateau at Chantilly. To celebrate, he invited the 33-year-old king to inspect the improvements. The monarch often made such excursions, accompanied by a retinue. As well as showing provincial nobility that he kept an eye on their activities, it relieved the strain on the royal kitchens, and also promised good hunting.
A courtier visited Chantilly to finalize the arrangements.
“His majesty doesn’t want a fuss,” he explained. “Just some quiet days in the country with a few old and close friends.”
But Condé knew the king. “I assume this means his highness will expect food and entertainment of a lavishness to rival the Rome of the Caesars.”
“Precisely.”
“And how many ‘old and close friends’ may we expect?”
“A mere handful. No more than five or six hundred.” Not to mention the several hundred valets, maids and servants who would attend them.
Summoning his Officier de Bouche, François Vatel, Condé ordered him to plan three banquets on consecutive nights, plus the two-hour spectacles of music, dance, theatrical illusions and fireworks that went with them.
Vatel rallied his troops. Just as a general seldom picks up a weapon, the Master of the Mouth prepared no food. After deciding on the menu, he briefed his chef de cuisine, who, likewise, did no actual cooking. (Vatel has been credited with the invention of only one dish, the sweet vanilla-flavored crème Chantilly, but this existed long before his time.) Seated in the middle of the kitchen, the chef supervised a team of butchers, pastry cooks, sauciers and, in particular, roasters. Skilled technicians who knew to a few seconds how long a fowl or fish should cook, these men supervised the three-meter-long spits that rotated before the flames, turned by sweating “spit boys” who sat in an alcove next to the open hearth and operated a crank or, in larger houses, a treadmill.
Although barely protected from the heat, these “boys,” who worked six-hour shifts beginning at 4 a.m., did so fully clothed, nudity being considered lewd. Nor could they take a toilet break, since nothing must interrupt the steady rotation of the spitted meats. Once they left the kitchen, comfort was still denied them. Like all but the most senior servants, they slept on the floor. In an additional health risk, they were exposed to the effects of the charcoal increasingly used in the best kitchens to reduce smoke and maximize heat. A number of chefs died of carbon monoxide poisoning, among them the great Carême, cook to Napoleon’s closest adviser, Talleyrand, and to Britain’s Prince of Wales.
Louis and his party arrived at Chantilly on Thursday and were shown around the estate. After picnicking in a field of daffodils (planted for the occasion), they mounted up and went in search of game. The hunt continued after sunset, the king pursuing a stag by moonlight. After this, they returned to the chateau for turtle soup, fried trout and roast pheasant, followed by fireworks. For Vatel, however, the evening ended in despair. Louis brought more people than expected, and there were not enough pheasants to go round. A few guests had to make do with chicken. Then it rained, dampening the fireworks intended as the climax of the evening.
Louis XIV and His Court Hunting at the Château of Meudon, Adam Frans Van der Meulen (1632–1690), Versailles, Musée du Château
Worse was to come. As Catholics ate no meat on Fridays, every dish for the second banquet had to be fish or vegetables. Pike and trout swam in Chantilly’s ponds, but saltwater fish, oysters, lobsters and other crustaceans had to come from the Atlantic coast, more than 200 kilometres away. Vatel had purchased the entire day’s catch at the nearest port, Boulogne-sur-Mer. Packed in seaweed and loaded into four-horse carts, each hauling 3.5 tonnes, it left at dusk. Fresh horses waited every 20 kilometres along the route. Even then, the trip in pitch darkness over unpaved roads took all night.
Descending from his apartments at 4 a.m. on Friday, Vatel stepped over his exhausted staff asleep along the corridors. At sunrise, an apprentice carried two baskets of fish into the kitchens: the estate’s own freshwater catch.
Vatel, hysterical with fatigue, demanded, “Is that all?”
When the flustered boy told him nothing else had arrived, Vatel began to rave. His friend, the Duc de Gourville, tried to calm him. But Vatel was beyond reason. “I will not survive this disgrace,” he told de Gourville. “My honor and reputation are lost.”
Later that day, Madame de Sévigné rushed off a letter to her daughter, describing what followed:
Vatel, the great Vatel, seeing that this morning at eight o’clock the fish had not arrived, and not being able to bear the dishonour by which he thought he was about to be struck—in one word, he stabbed himself. They sent for Monsieur le Prince, who is in utter despair. Monsieur le Duc [de Gourville] burst into tears. You can imagine the disorder which such a terrible accident caused at this fête. And imagine that just as he was dying, the fish arrived!
Vatel was buried quietly on the estate. The location of his grave isn’t known, although he is memorialized among the legends of culinary history as a chef for whom food was, literally, a matter of life and death.