Maitre le Borgne recognized the importance of catering more to the jaded palate than to the palate in normal condition; hence, his popularity.

In truth, he had the most delectable vintages outside the governor's cellars; they came from Bordeaux, Anjou, Burgundy, Champagne, and Sicily.

His cook was an excommunicated monk from Touraine, a province, according to the merry Vicar of Meudon, in which cooks, like poets, were born, not bred.

His spits for turning a fat goose or capon were unrivaled even in Paris, whither his fame had gone through a speech of the Duc de Rohan, who said, shortly after the siege, that if ever he gained the good graces of Louis, he would come back for that monk.
What a list he placed before the gourmand! There were hams boiled in sherry or madeira with pistachios, eels, reared in soft water and fed on chickens' entrails and served with anchovy paste and garlic, fried stuffed pigs' ears, eggs with cocks' combs, dormice in honey, pigeons with mushrooms, crabs boiled in sherry, crawfish and salmon and lobster, caviar pickled in the brine of spring-salt, pheasants stuffed with chestnuts and lambs' hearts, grainless cheeses, raisins soaked in honey and brandy, potted hare, chicken sausages, mutton fed on the marshes, boars boned and served whole and stuffed with oysters,--a list which would have opened the eyes of such an indifferent eater as Lucullus! There was a private hall for the ladies and the nobly born; but the common assembly-room was invariably chosen by all those who were not accompanied by ladies.

The huge fireplace, with high-backed benches jutting out from each side of it, the quaint, heavy bowlegged tables and chairs, the liberality of lights, the continuous coming and going of the brilliantly uniformed officers stationed at Fort Louis, the silks and satins of the nobles, the soberer woolens of the burghers and seamen, all combined to give the room a peculiar charm and color.
Thus, with the golden pistole of Spain, the louis and crown and livre of France, and the stray Holland and English coins, Maitre le Borgne began quickly to gorge his treasure-chests; and no one begrudged him, unless it was Maitre Olivet of the Pomme de Pin.
Outside the storm continued.