So many Americans know and love brie that this classic French cheese has almost become passé, as people increasingly seek out more obscure and intriguing cheeses. But most Americans may not be aware that the brie sold in the United States is a pale imitation of the real thing, thanks to strict import laws requiring pasteurization and the unfortunate market dominance of industrial brie. Unlike many French cheeses, plain old “brie” is not protected by an AOC, and today most brie is produced in factories outside its region of origin. The brie sold in the United States, whether by American or French brands, tends to be creamy and buttery—pleasing, but inoffensive. So it can be a real shock to try one of the two AOC-protected varieties, Brie de Meaux or Brie de Melun, which fairly ooze onto your plate once you slice through the white rind, and assault your senses with their overwhelmingly pungent fall flavors. Sadly, these proper Bries are so threatening to the American authorities that you’ll have to leave the country to sample them.
For centuries, the French have referred to brie as the “cheese of kings,” in part because it was traditionally produced in the region of Brie, between the Seine and Marne river valleys, not far from Paris. Charlemagne apparently liked brie so much that he asked for it to be sent twice yearly to his palace in Aachen. Henry IV, that incorrigible womanizer, is said to have forgotten to visit his mistress whenever his wife brought out the brie. As we have seen, Louis XVI was said to have lost his last chance for freedom when he tarried too long on the road from Paris to enjoy a Brie de Meaux. Brie’s popularity was not limited to royalty; as a deputy in the Assembly declared during the revolution, “The Brie cheese, loved by the rich and the poor, preached equality before we thought it possible.” But it has maintained a sort of royal reputation through the ages, long after the monarchy itself disappeared.
There was a time, however, when brie was known not only as “the cheese of kings” but “the king of cheeses”—all thanks to the wily Talleyrand and his desperate efforts to restore French honor after Napoleon’s dramatic fall.
With Napoleon exiled to Elba, it was left to the victorious Allies—Britain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia—to bring stability back to Europe. Napoleon’s conquests had massively disrupted the old political order, and Europe’s patchwork of principalities had to be reconstituted and parceled out among the major powers. A decade and a half of war had also altered the relative strengths of the leading states. A new balance of power needed to be agreed upon and consolidated among the great powers if peace was to be sustained. The European monarchs were also keen to return the revolutionary genie back to its bottle, and prevent any republican zeal from emerging in their own nations. So the victors gathered in Vienna in September 1814 for what became known as the Congress of Vienna, a months-long diplomatic tussle over how to rebuild the European political order.
Talleyrand, having fallen out with Napoleon, helped negotiate the restoration of the French monarchy, not out of any royalist affinity but because he saw it as the only viable option for a defeated France. The Bourbon heir to the throne since the death of the little prince in the Temple prison was the brother of Louis XVI, and he now ascended the throne as King Louis XVIII. He sent Talleyrand to Vienna to represent France in the negotiations, although he was expected to have little influence given France’s absolute defeat. But Talleyrand did a remarkable job of exploiting the victors’ rivalries, as well as their desire to permanently quash the contagion of revolution with a successful monarchical restoration. His diplomatic maneuverings helped preserve France’s status as a major power and most of its territorial integrity; in the final peace treaty, France was forced to surrender only those lands acquired after 1791, although it did have to pay a staggering indemnity of 700 million francs to the victors.
The original peace terms were even more generous to France, but naturally, Napoleon scuppered the deal with one last grasp for glory. As the months rolled by during his forced retirement on Elba, the former master of Europe grew bored and restless. When reports arrived of discontent and unrest under the restored king, Napoleon saw a chance to escape his dreary exile. In March 1815, he landed with a small force of a thousand men on the southern French coast in a last campaign known as the Hundred Days. The French army had not been purged of Bonaparte loyalists, and they now rallied to their general, who proceeded to Paris. When the armed forces in the capital defected as well, Louis XVIII fled, and Napoleon briefly reclaimed his rule of France. But in June, the forces of Britain and Prussia dealt Napoleon his final defeat, in the legendary Battle of Waterloo.1 Having learned their lesson, the victors now exiled Napoleon to a barren rock in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean. He died there, on Saint Helena, in 1821.
It is a testament to Talleyrand’s immense diplomatic capabilities that even this outrageous Napoleonic aggression did not completely derail his campaign to save France. As in his previous career as foreign minister, he employed every gastronomic tactic possible to seduce and sway his European counterparts—a more vital and yet difficult mission than ever before, given the weak hand France had to play. Luckily, the participants in the Congress were as fond of the luxurious life as Talleyrand, and there were ample opportunities to deploy his gifts at banquets, concerts, and balls. In fact, the frequent socializing was one reason the conference took months to reach accord; in the words of Prince Charles de Ligne, a charming Austrian field marshal, Le congrès danse beaucoup, mais il ne marche pas (The Congress dances a lot, but it does not move forward).
Talleyrand lodged at the Kaunitz Palace, and with the help of his favorite chef, Antonin Carême, he transformed the space into a gastronomic paradise. Talleyrand’s elegant dinners were intended to make his counterparts more receptive to his suggestions, but he also used them as a sort of culinary espionage tool. Knowing that fancy food and wine often loosened tongues, he instructed his service staff to listen in on his guests’ conversations and report details back to him.
One night, at yet another Viennese dinner party, the assembled diplomats began talking about their respective national cheeses, growing increasingly boastful as they proclaimed the virtues of Stilton, Limburger, and Gruyère. Talleyrand, of course, maintained that no cheese could equal Brie, the “cheese of kings.” So a dinner was organized to judge the matter, and ultimately fifty-two European cheeses made it to the table. In the end, Brie was announced the winner, and thus earned the new title of the “king of cheeses.” (After the dinner, one guest remarked of Talleyrand and brie: “This is the only prince he will not be able to betray.”)
This little cheese victory helped remind the assembled diplomats of the enduring riches of a vanquished power. Indeed, it was a lesson already being learned back in France, as the hundreds of thousands of occupying troops discovered the pleasures of French cuisine. According to Brillat-Savarin, Paris became
an immense dining hall. These intruders, they ate at the restaurants, the traiteurs, the cabarets, the taverns, the street stalls, and even in the streets. They stuffed themselves with meat, fish, game, truffles, pastry, and especially our fruits. They drank with an avidity equal to their appetite, and always asked for the more expensive wines . . . The true French laughed and rubbed his hands saying, “They are under the spell, and tonight they will give us back more money than the public treasury gave them this morning.”2
There is a myth that the term bistro originates in this period, with the Russian soldiers shouting at the French waiters, “быстро, быстро” (“bistro, bistro”—or “quick, quick”). It is true that a French bistro is a nice place to grab a relatively quick meal, but this tale is probably apocryphal.
And so the Napoleonic era came to close, with France a fallen but quiescent power, stripped of its glory but still possessed of great cultural and gastronomic wealth. The revolutionary project appeared to be dead but in fact was merely slumbering, biding its time until the doomed French monarchy finally slipped into historical oblivion.