The Book of Ices
In Paris we had to move quickly to get an audience with the king before our peas unfroze. Luckily Monsieur Bontemps, the king’s valet, proved just as corruptible as Audiger had predicted, and within a few days we were shown into the presence of Louis XFV, his brother and several other members of the nobiHty. Audiger was so greatly in awe of them he could hardly speak. Fortunately our gift required little introduction, and Audiger’s stammering oratory was soon ignored as the aristocrats crowded round the box of peas, trying them. ^
The king asked his valet to take what was left to the controller of the mouth to have them divided; one part for tlte queen, one for the queen mother, one for the cardinal, and the last one for himself. ‘As for these intrepid gentlemen, Bontemps,’ he said, gesturing at us, ‘please reward them for their trouble.’
I looked at Audiger. This was the point at which he should, according to our plan, have uttered the speech he had prepared. But my companion, unusually for him, seemed to be struck dumb, and was now staring at the king with an expression of wide-eyed adoration.
‘If it may please Your Majesty,’ I said with a bow, ‘we wish no
reward, save only the privilege to make ices and other chilled confections, for the royal pleasure.’
Louis raised his eyebrows. ‘Ices?’
Audiger found his voice. ‘My assistant, sir, was lately at the court of the Medici, and is greatly accomplished in this art.’
The king’s gaze scrutinised my face. ‘What is your name, signor?’
‘Demirco, sir.’
‘And how old are you?’
‘Eighteen,’ I lied.
‘Hmm. A good age - the same age at which I took on the government of France. I look forward to trying your confections. Cardinal Mazarin has long had the services of an Italian limonadier^ and on several occasions I have had cause to admire his handiwork. His name is MorelU - perhaps you are acquainted with him?’
I shook my head. ‘No, sir.’
‘He is a most inventive man. But perhaps -’ I felt the king scrutinising me even more closely - ‘you will prove his equal. I certainly hope so. It would give me great pleasure to outdo the cardinal at table.’
I had a glimpse then into the character of this king. Rivalry that was what drove him. Everything he did, or had, or patronised, must be the best, and any courtier or statesman who offered him anything - even so insubstantial a morsel as a flavoured ice was only stoking Louis’s insatiable appetite to outdo him.
I bowed again. ‘I shall try. Your Majesty.’
Beside me, Audiger added, ‘A task, sir, which would certainly be easier if we were able to establish a guild - a guild of confectioners - with a royal patent, and a council, and a right of issuing masterships—’
‘Yes, yes. Make an ice and send it to me this evening at dinner time. If I find it acceptable, the honour is yours.’ The king swept out, followed by the rest.
Audiger stared at the empty doorway, then caught at my sleeve. ‘Tonight!’ he hissed. ‘We must send him an ice tonight!’
‘It is no matter,’ I said confidently. ‘Get me green walnuts from the market, then find a cordial shop and .buy some liqueur de mix. The liquor maker will have done most of the hard work for us.’ I had no intention, now that I had finally got to France, of restricting myself to Ahmad’s four flavours ever again.
It was the beginning of a remarkable period. In Florence I had been less than a servant: here in Paris, I was almost a courtier. Audiger arranged for me to be dressed in the style of a dancing teacher or a painter of portraits, my frock coat resplendent with twenty-four never-used buttons, my white breeches tight enough to show off my calves, my hat three-cornered, my wig - the first I had ever owned - long and liberally powdered with chalk. The latter itched abominably. After I had worn it for a week I realised that I was either going to have to shave my head, as Audiger did, or get rid of the wig. I got rid of the wig. But the rest of my clothes, I thought, suited me rather well, and when I caught sight of myself in one of the full-length mirrors with which the king’s new salons were panelled, I could not help being impressed.
The two of us were given a cellar at the king’s country residence of Marly, and in Paris we took ^ premises in Saint-Germain-de-Pres, convenient for the Louvre\ The labour I had been obliged to do in Florence, dragging blocks of ice from the ice house to the palace, here was done by others - Paris already had a thriving trade in ice and pressed snow to cool the nobility’s wine, and good quality supplies could be obtained all year round. Even the work of chipping and grating was done by apprentices, of whom Audiger engaged no less than four.
But it was at the king’s new palace of Versailles that we spent most of our time. Audiger had not been lying when he spoke of its magnificence. Although the building work was by no means finished - indeed, it was not finished all the time I was there: as soon
as one project was complete, Louis immediately embarked on another, his ambition always outstripping his architects’ abilities to fulfil it - the old house had already been enveloped in a grand new facade, the symmetrical, regular windows grander than anything I had come acros^ even in Florence, at that time widely regarded as the most beautiful city in the world. Versailles - or ‘the new palace’, as it was usually referred to - had the elegant proportions of the Uffizi or the Pitti, yet it was surrounded by open parkland, like a country estate; it was the size of a castle, yet was entirely, confidently, without fortifications of any kind; it fulfilled the functions of a court, yet contained no mean little offices or functionaries’ chambers, only gorgeous salons and sumptuous galleries. In short, it was a completely new kind of palace, and in it Louis carried out a completely new kind of government - one in which no distinction was made between matters of state and matters of fashion; where ministers were respected for the urbanity of their address or the elegance of their clothes as much as for the wisdom of their counsel; and where everything, from the length of a fingernail to matters of war, revolved around the impeccable person of the king himself: his moods, his manners, and above all, his tastes.
For Louis was a gourmet - some said, a glutton. Over three hundred people worked in his kitchens, which occupied a whole building adjacent to the palace, and sixty of those prepared nothing but desserts. There was a team of nine who made macaroons, plump meringue-like biscuits filled with brightly coloured pastes of pistachio, liquorice, blackcurrant, or almond. There were confectioners who specialised in subtleties of spun sugar, or who made confits from sugared seeds, or who prepared orgeat, a paste of scalded almonds, orange blossom and coriander of which the king was especially fond. I made sure to spend time in the kitchens of these specialists, ostensibly to warm hands frozen from working ice, but actually to see how they worked. Soon, to the king’s great satisfaction, I was producing ices of a kind that had never been
made before - chilled cordials flavoured with orgeat, or milk ices sandwiched between layers of meringue that looked like macaroons, or sorbetti that could be held in the hand within a litde lattice goblet made of spun sugar, so that they did not drip on your fine court clothes as they melted.
There was no one now to tell me what I could not do: indeed, it soon became clear that novelty was an essential part of the service that Audiger and I provided. Every time the king hosted a collation, or picnic, one table would be set aside for us to fill. Around a centrepiece of carved ice, or a clockwork fountain of fi*uit cordial, we would arrange a tMenu of jeUies, sorbets, sherbets, chilled liqueurs, perfumed waters, fi-uits encased in ice, and other frozen delights. And then - perhaps a few hours later, perhaps the following week, depending on the whim of the court, which was to say, the whim of His Most Christian Majesty - we would do it all again, with not a single repetition of a recipe or flavour. If an ice of candied flowers was one of the dishes we offered on a Tuesday, at least a fortnight would pass before it graced the king’s table again. If slices of peach fashioned into the shape of the sun’s rays and flavoured with galingale dazzled the court on a Wednesday, then at least another Wednesday would go by before it shone for a second time. An eaupflacee of cubebs and long pepper, or a sorbet of musk melon cordial sharpened with cassia, might divert the courtiers and their ladies today, but tomorrow it would no longer be a novelty, and the day after that it would bore thern