The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1891-09-12
The Polite Frsnchman Always Pro-
yidss ! Box Of Sweets 1t
tho Theatre.
Not Considered Unhealthy, and
tho Children Have Them In
Place Of Bread.
Ambitious Confeotloners In the Time of
tho First Gesrge-The History
Of Desserts.
Iwritten for THE INDEPENDENTLY

party OF ladies at Sh0at0r Or opera, Sno
gentleman host always carries along a box
Of bonbons; within il . little imitation
silver tongs by which she can help herself
to 1 chocolate or a maroon doguisees, with
ont soiling her fingers. She does not con-
slider, this pampersd dame. that France
makes annually 100000 600 Of francs' worth
Of bonbons. That it exports only about
o~ne-fourth Of this, leaving an enormous
sum for home copsumption; perhaps
Il, 100, 900 English money, not to be too &C.
curate, would hardly pay for the bonbons
French people eat in 4 year.
The French do not consider bonbons I'M
healthy. Instead of giving her boy .
piece Of bread and butter as he departs
for the "Lyces" the French mamma gives
him two or three chocolate bonbons. The
hunter takes these to the top OF the Matter
horn; ladies take them in their pockets in
stead Of a lunch basket; and ono assured
me that two slabs Of chocolate sufficed her
for breakfast and supper on the road from
Paris to Rome.
The fashion Of our day, with it, low
dishes for the sweets, il go much batter
that we sannot help conRratulatinR our
selves that va do not live even in days OF
the frst George, when, ~ one witty author
neain SAYS: 1.-THE house Of Brunswick
brought over sound Protestantism. but Ger
man taste" Horace Walpole, great about
trifes, incompatible dsoider Of the width
Of a shoe buckle, keen dsspissr Of all mean
nesses but his own, neat and fastidious,
tripper along a fowery path over this
planet, derided the new fashion in desserts.
The ambitious confeotioners. he says. "as-
pired to positive statuary, archaeological
Venus. Dummy Mars, all made Of sugar."
and he mentions q confeotioner of Lord
Albemarle's who loudly complained that
his lordship would not break up the ceiling
of his dining room to admit the heads,
spear points and appraised thunderbolts Of
a middle dish of Olympian deitiss eighteen
feet high, all made of sugar.
heavy and cumbrous affairs, and had no
nespsoial character. There would be a good
Ideal of Csllini cup and Limoges plate, and
Palissy dish. and golden chased goblet
,,about it. no doubt. How glad the eollsc.-
tors of to-day would be to get them! And
md poisonous bonbons. The taste must
have been questionable, If We can believe
Ben Jonson, who tells Of the beribbonsd
dwarf jester. who, at a lord mayors dinner,
took q flying header into . dish OF oustard,
to the infinite sorrow OF the LADIES'. dresses;
the dwarf, Sir Jafrey Hudson, was CON
cealed. and they both are after Tom
Thumb. who wal fishing about in q cur OF
posset, q thousand years ago.
The dessert ID allowed by AL frencn
writer's to be Of Italian origin; and we read
that at the Maitred hotel, before the Ital-
ian dessert arrived (%probably introduced by
Catharine do Lsdioi and the Guisesj, that
they Qloried in mountains OF fruit and
sticky hills Of swsetmeats, The elegance
was clumsy and ostentatious. There was
the Marriage of Cana will give SOM idea
Of the primeval French dessert. The latter
fashion was of those trees and gardens,
and puppets, abused by Horace Walpole;
but Frenchmen delighted in seas OF glass,
flower beds formed OF colored sand, and
little sugar men int women promenadinl
"a bowling green's. We get some idea OF
those magnificent fstes of Louis XIV. al
Versaillss, from the glowing description OF
Dufoy, in 1906, introduced 'frizzled mus
lin into a slice of fairy land" that is, he
made extraordinary pictures Of temples
and trees for the center of his dessert.
And these palaces and temples were said to
have been Of perfect proportions; his trees
of frizzled muslin were admirable. II
sounds very much like ohildren's toys just
He went further. Dufoy, having ran
sacked heaven and earth. air and water, h
thrust his hand into the IRE, and made
harmless rockets shoot from his sugar tenn
pies. Sugar rocks were strewn about, Will
prscipices of nougat and glaciers OF vanilla
candy, waterfalls of spun sugar. A con
f~ectioner in 1905 had to keep his wits about
him, for after every victory of Napoleon he
was expected to do the whole thing III sugar
He was q decorator, painter, architect,
sculptor and florist, icor-yes, until after
the Russian campaign, and then, they hac
enough OF ice! No-thus we sse that the
dessert has always been more for the cyl
than for the stomach.
The good things that have been said ovel
the walnuts and the wine! The pretty
books written about clarst and olives! One
author says that if all the good thing
which hays been said about tho gay anC
smiling dessert could be printed II would
make q pleasant aneedotic little pamphlet
of four Thousand odd pages!
These fancies may be sometimes par
odied in our own time, 81 the bonbon max
ors of Paris now devote their talents to tn.
paper absurditiss Of h%arlequins. Turks
Cinnamon, and all the vaRaries Of 4 fame,
dress ball with which the passengers O
steamships amuse themselves, after th,
captains dinner. This il not that legiti-
mate dessert, at which We now find ices
disguised AZ natural fruits or copying
rose; all the most beautiful forms in tn,
world are now reproduced in the frozel
water or cream, as healthy as it il delicious
in the famous jelly, with marischino, o.
the delicate bonbon, with the priceless
liuqeur, or better still, that can do menth'
cordial, our own green peppermint. which
utter all. saves us by one mouthful ffon
iho borroru ~ Indication and aida &ha,