Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1875-12-22
THE FOOD OF GREAT MEN.

THE FOOD OF GREAT MEN.
What some of the Great Men Of History
Refished.
A writer In Belgravia relates the fol-
lowing anecdotes about the food of
great men," "Great men are great
eaters" would probably be the first
exclamation Of one who was given to
over-hasty generalization. Thera would,
indeed, be many examples to support
such q rule. Charles Y. for instance,
was an enormous eater. We are told
that he breakfasted at five on fowl,
seethed In milk and dressed with sugar
and spices. After this he went to sleep
again. He dined at twelve, partaking
always of twenty dishes. He supped
twice; at first soon after vespers, and
the second time at midnight or one
o'clock, which meal was, perhaps, the
most solid of the four. After meat he
ate a great quantity OF sweetmeats, and
he irrigated every repast by vast
draughts Of beer and wine. His stom-
ach, originally wonderful one, sue
cumbed after forty years of such labors.
(Motley, Rise of the Dutch Republic. }
After all, Charles died at an age
about Sat- which we are accustomed
Ill these days to consider statesman as
still in the prime of life. The love of
pastry appears to have been hereditary
in the house of Hapsburg. Philip H.,
the same historian tells us, looked ha-
bitually on the ground when he con-
versed, was very chary of speech, en-
barrasssed, and even suffering in man.
ner. This was ascribed partly to habit
ual pains in the stomach, occasioned by
his fondness for pastry. Philip or
derlng an aUto-Io. Je after a meal of
gooseherry tart which had disagreed
with him is fit subject for an historical
picture.
friedrich the Great is another illus
tration of the rule. Though he could
dine on cup of chocolate in war time,
he loved good eating and drinking, and
undoubtedly fastened his death by re-
fusing to conform in any way to proper
rules of diet. The King, wrote Mira
beau. who was in Berlin at the time,
'eats every day of ten or twelve dishes
at dinner, each very highly seasoned;
beside at breakfast and supper, bread
and butter covered with sailed tongue
and pepper, We are at the last scene.
No wonder. A short time before a
gentleman dined with Frederick when
an eel pie WAS brought to the table
which he declared was SO hot that it
looked as If it had been baked in hell p
The King was immoderate!y fond
OF these eel pies, peppered to excess.
But, about six weeks before his death,
we have the record of a breakfast
such as sick man has rarely eaten.
Our authority is again Mirabeau. sOn
the 4th of July when the doctor (the
celebrated Zimmerman, from Hanover)
saw the King in the afternoon, all had
again changed for the worse. He
had applied himself to public business
from $50 in the morning until z. He
then ate for his breakfast a plate of
sweetmeats, composed of sugar, white
of egg, and sour cream; then strawber-
ries, cherries and cold meat Freder-
ick's Illness was dropsy. He died on
the 18th of August, 1885. Every school
boy will remember the parallel of the
English King who died of eating too
many lampreys. King John, too, is
said to have died of surfeit of peaches
and new ale. The verdict of modern
epicures will probably be, Serve him
right"
&c William Ill, the savior of our lib
critics, both ate and drank more than
was good for him. He loved to sit many
hours at table; indeed dinner was his
chief recreation. Nothing must inter
fere with his enjoyment; the Princess
Anne might look wistfully at that dish
of young peas, but she looked in vain,
for the king ate them all, and never
even offered her spoonful. She re-
venged herself by calling the deliyerer
sCaliban.
Among other sovereigns we find the
great Napoleon voracious eater. Some
one has attributed the loss of the battle
of Leipsic to the effects of shoulder of
mutton stuffed with onions, with which
the Emperor literally gorged himself,
so as to become incapable of clear mind
and vigorous action. He ate very fast.
The state banquet at the Tuileries lasted
about thirty five minutes. On the
other hand, he was no lover of wine.
In that melancholy voyage to st. Helena
he offended the English officers by ris-
ing from the table before drinking had
fairly begun. The General one of
these prigs had the brutality to say in
his hearing, has evidently not studied
manners In the school of Lord Chester
field Their idea of politeness-
tainly Lord Chesterfeld's to drink
on till you dropped under the table.
Macauley tells us how, when Peter
the Great visited England in the year
1893, the immense quantity of meat
which he devoured, the pints of brandy
which he swallowed, and which, it was
said, he had distilled with his own
hands, were during some weeks popu-
lar topics of CONVEX sation. Great as
was Peter, he might have found his
peer in the Roman Emperor Maximin
CA. D. 235-2 35), who could eat in one
day forty pounds of meat and drink six
gallons of wine unless the historians
lie,
There can be no doubt, however,
that the Roman emperors numbered