The Discovery of Chocolate

by James Runcie

  ‘I thought this was a prison,’ I observed, failing to understand how this most sombre of institutions could be the pit of hell for so many of its inhabitants and yet a visiting hotel for others.

  ‘It is.’

  ‘And you can eat whatever you choose?’

  ‘Whatever my wife brings me. There is only one thing I lack.’

  ‘And what is that?’

  ‘Chocolate. I have a most particular desire; and yet it is denied me as a punishment.’

  ‘On what grounds?’

  ‘Recalcitrance. Are you permitted such a thing?’

  ‘I do not know what I am allowed. I am told nothing.’

  ‘Then you must tell them. A man should not be made to suffer without understanding why. This is not the Spanish Inquisition.’

  ‘Indeed not.’

  He eyed me beadily, but I kept my counsel, saying: ‘The guards have told me that these are difficult times for food of quality. There have been riots over bread …’

  ‘The people in the streets are restless. They shout for bread, yet it lies piled in Saint-Lazare. There is plenty if you know where to seek it. I have excellent connections, and can assure you, Monsieur, that the times are not so difficult as to deny us chocolate. Perhaps you could ask for some in my place.’

  ‘I will try to do so.’

  ‘You know about chocolate?’

  ‘I do, my Lord.’

  I hesitated.

  No.

  It was too ridiculous to begin my story.

  ‘And what is your favourite method of taking chocolate?’

  ‘It is as a drink, combining chocolate, cinnamon and vanilla.’

  ‘Vanilla?’ He smiled secretively. ‘I am very fond of vanilla. It can be put to excellent use. Yet have you not tasted a violet chocolate cream, a chocolate mixed with the petals of roses, or even a pastille?’

  ‘I have not …’

  ‘Then how can you have lived?’

  ‘I have spent many years travelling …’

  ‘And what have you done for money?’

  ‘I have taught Latin. I have worked as a notary and as a scribe. And I have even cooked …’

  ‘A cook?’ He stopped, suddenly excited. ‘Then you must come to my rooms as soon as possible. We will make chocolate together. Ask the gaolers to go to Monsieur Debauve in Rue des Saints-Pères; he is the purveyor of chocolate to the King.’

  ‘They think I am insane.’

  ‘But no more insane than the other inhabitants. Come with your dog, and come with chocolate. What is your daily allowance?’

  ‘Nine livres.’

  ‘That is ample. Monsieur Debauve has an excellent breakfast chocolate. He also sells a chocolate flavoured with salep for the fortification of muscle, an anti-spasmodic chocolate with orange blossom, and an almond-milk chocolate for the irritable. We shall need them all.’ The man was suddenly both animated and beneficent, as if the prospect of chocolate had sealed our friendship. ‘I will order the remaining ingredients: cream, syrup, raspberries and, of course, cognac. We shall have a feast, and tell each other the story of our lives; what, pray, is your name and title?’

  I paused, but because he thought me to be already mad, such caution was no longer necessary.

  ‘I am Diego de Godoy, a notary for General Hernán Cortés, servant of the Emperor Charles V.’

  The man in the overcoat made a low bow, as if trained in an age of manners now long past. On rising, he looked me in the eye, and said in a low voice, ‘And I am Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade.’

  I returned to my room in a state of exhilaration; here at last was a man of distinction with whom I could converse. How much of life is improved by hope, by the introduction of new friendship, and by new possibilities. I was almost happy.

  How long was it since I had last been content?

  How quickly the mind can move from joy to despair. As if from nowhere, the memory of Ignacia entered my soul once more. I could not stop thinking about her, but now doubted not only my memory but also my feelings. Perhaps I had begun to idolise her, just as I had worshipped Isabella. How could I test such emotion?

  And what indeed was love? Had I really known it, or was it just a mirage, like everything else in my life? Would I ever understand that which was real, and that which was not? How could I trust anything?

  All these questions needed answers, and I began to believe that the Marquis might be able to provide them.

  I resolved to bring him chocolate as soon as I was able.

  His room was fine indeed, and so opulent was the furniture that I could not believe that we were still in prison. Four family portraits hung on the walls; tapestries, decorated velvet cushions, and cotton fabrics were thrown about the chamber; and soft, clean, quilted mattresses lay in two corners. An open nécessaire revealed a lavish assortment of clothes: velvet coats, satin breeches, silk stockings; tricornes, broad-brimmed beaver hats and damask nightgowns; buckled shoes, jack boots, spatterdashes and Hessians. A roquelaure cloak and a surtout were strewn on the chaise longue. Books lay scattered on every surface, and the room was lit by a plentiful supply of candles. The Marquis had even perfumed the air with orange flower water.

  ‘My humble dwelling …’ He smiled.

  Food was laid out all around us; there were fresh marigolds in a vase (he informed me that he received flowers every week) and a bowl of raspberries lay on an antique bureau.

  ‘You have brought the chocolate?’ he asked.

  ‘I have.’

  ‘Then let us drink some first. Mérigot’ – he snapped his fingers – ‘prepare the chocolatière.’

  I looked across the room and noticed a white porcelain jug decorated with blue flowers, handled, and lidded, with a stirring spoon. The Marquis followed my observation and added, ‘I had the chocolatière made for me. It is very fine,’ before moving towards the fireplace.

  A bowl of water was boiling in preparation.

  ‘Let us begin,’ he cried. ‘We shall make raspberry liqueur creams, I think.’ He placed the chocolate I had brought in a bowl suspended over boiling water, and the rising steam soon began to melt the chocolate.

  ‘Stir this slowly,’ he ordered, handing me a spoon. ‘Mérigot, the moulds.’

  The servant crossed the room with a silver tray of some thirty hollows, which he held in his left hand. Taking my melted chocolate in his right, Mérigot then poured the mixture into the moulded tray, returning the remaining chocolate to the heat when he had done so.

  ‘I would never have thought that I should one day be making raspberry crèmes in the Bastille,’ observed the Marquis gleefully.

  In one brisk movement Mérigot then inverted his tray, pouring the remaining chocolate back into my bowl. The chocolate clung to the scooped hollows, lining the mould.

  ‘Behold,’ sang the Marquis, ‘the very roofs and domes of our crèmes. Let them harden in the cool of the window ledge. It is a good crisp day and the indigo clouds that so often beset us have not yet formed – never make chocolate when the atmosphere is moist, my Spaniard, never let water touch it lest the mixture seize.’

  I stopped for a moment, amazed that this cell, once a prison and then a salon, had now become a kitchen.

  ‘Keep stirring the remaining chocolate, my fair Spaniard. Concentrate.’

  As. I resumed my task I wondered why the Marquis was in this place at all and asked him if he had committed any crime.

  ‘It was nothing. Mere libertinage. I have a mother-in-law who is the fons et origo of all viciousness.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘It was nothing.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘They say that I poisoned some prostitutes and seduced my wife’s sister.’

  ‘And did you?’

  He was amazed by my impertinence: as if I should have dared to ask such a question.

  ‘Of course I did no such thing. The prostitutes came willingly; my sister-in-law loved me.’

  ‘And your wife
?’

  ‘She understands.’

  ‘It surprises me that you should say so.’

  ‘It has always interested me, the things that people will do for a title.’

  ‘But the lady herself …’

  ‘In thrall to her mother. And, of course, to me. This chocolate needs a stronger stir.’

  ‘I have the very thing …’ I said, reaching into my knapsack.

  The eyes of the Marquis now burned with curiosity in the midst of his somewhat bloated face.

  ‘And what, pray, is that?’

  ‘My molinillo, Monsieur. It comes from ancient Mexico.’

  ‘Give it to me.’

  He picked up the instrument and began to feel its length.

  ‘This is a most excellent object …’ He was clearly in great awe.

  ‘I know of no better means of stirring chocolate,’ I said.

  ‘Indeed,’ he replied, testing the molinillo by whisking a bowl of cream, sugar and raspberry brandy over a low heat.

  ‘I like to whip up a good cream,’ he observed distractedly, before returning to his recipe.

  ‘Now, Spaniard,’ he cried, looking at me, ‘you see that bowl of raspberries? They have been soaking in brandy these past few days. Place one raspberry in each of the moulds. I will fill them with this cream. We will allow them to harden while we have our soup. Then we must cover the bases with the remains of our melted chocolate, and scoop them out at the end of our feast. It will be perfection.’

  I began to dot the raspberries in the moulds as Mérigot prepared a funnel. The Marquis removed his cream from the heat, and continued to stir the mixture.

  ‘My crème is at its peak,’ he cried to his lackey. ‘You have the necessary tool?’

  The servant held the funnel, and the Marquis scooped the mixture into the bag.

  ‘Diego de Godoy,’ he ordered, ‘bring me the platter if you please.’

  I brought over the tray, now lined with chocolate and filled with raspberries. Mérigot then squeezed the cream into each of the chocolate moulds, filling them to the brim.

  ‘Very good, Mérigot. Excellent,’ commended the Marquis. ‘Now we can rest before completing the bases.’

  Imperiously, he brushed his servant aside. ‘Clear, Mérigot, clear. The Spaniard and I must drink our chocolate.’

  Two china cups and saucers had been laid on the table before us and the Marquis picked up the chocolatière and began to pour out the chocolate.

  ‘These are trembleuses,’ the Marquis informed me. ‘They too have been specially made for chocolate.’

  He settled back in his chair.

  I drank the wonderfully viscous, bittersweet mixture. It was so rich that I did not know if I could eat a full meal after I had partaken of it. Its velvet texture was as the smoothest cream.

  ‘It settles us for a life of leisure, does it not?’ the Marquis opined. ‘Nothing can provide a greater sense of well being.’

  ‘It soothes the palate and stimulates the heart,’ I replied.

  ‘Richelieu’s brother uses it to bind his bowels, you know,’ confided my companion.

  Mérigot now cleared the cooking into what appeared to be a side chamber as the Marquis and I sat drinking chocolate and talking of our past. Although he evidently thought my life a fiction, I related its course as factually as I could, and he was amused by many of my adventures, taking particular interest in the sexual proclivities of the women in Chiapas.

  ‘What a paradise that must have been,’ he concluded, ‘a paradise. Such a pity you had to leave.’

  ‘I was glad to do so.’

  ‘With so much still to explore? Shame on you, my fair Spaniard, shame on you.’

  The meal arrived. It was the most sumptuous repast I had experienced since the dinner given in Isabella’s house so many years before. Mérigot was the perfect showman, displaying each dish in turn: sorrel soup, artichoke terrine, and an almond and monkfish mousse, followed by partridges stuffed with Muscat grapes, red mullet sausages in chervil butter, medallions of foie gras, roast chicken with pine kernels, a gasconnade de pintades, cuttlefish cooked in pastis, marinated artichokes, stuffed courgette flowers in a tomato coulis, goat’s cheese truffles in olive pâté, Cressane pears, a nut galette, fresh grapes, four bottles of old burgundy, the best mocha coffee, and a large bottle of Armagnac.

  It could have fed the entire prison for a week.

  There was even a separate tray for Pedro, containing beef, mutton, horseflesh and maize, raw fruits, milk, beans, and boiled fish. He looked at me with a mixture of mistrust and amazement, as if we had rediscovered the New World once more. I think that we were both filled with good humour, so warmed and comforted were we by the hospitality of this fine gourmand.

  In the middle of our repast, the Marquis summoned Mérigot once more.

  ‘Have you completed the backs of the chocolate crèmes?’

  ‘I have, my Lord.’

  ‘Then bring them to me.’

  ‘I fear they are still warm. They are not ready to be turned out.’

  ‘Bring us samples. Two to savour.’

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘I like my chocolate as black as possible …’ The Marquis gulped at his wine. We were now onto our third bottle. ‘As black as the devil’s arse.’

  It was odd to hear him speak so crudely and I must confess that it puzzled me, for he was a man of the most exquisite manners.

  The chocolate now arrived, together with two glasses of ice-cold water. Mérigot advised that we cleansed our palates so that we would be ready to discern each taste.

  ‘Like Mass,’ observed the Marquis. ‘But then you know all about that.’ He smiled, referring to my adventure in Chiapas.

  The chocolate crèmes rested on a silver filigree salver, as if they were the most precious jewels upon earth.

  I took the cream into my mouth and let it rest on my tongue.

  Slowly, the dark chocolate seeped into my being.

  I took a light bite into the crisp outer shell.

  It broke gently.

  I began to savour the sharp taste of the macerated fruit and the soft, velvet raspberry cream as it spread through my senses, enlivened and warmed by the surging aftertaste of the brandy. I closed my eyes and let the flavour engulf me. Taste had never lingered so long as this new richness stole into my soul.

  ‘Excellent,’ interrupted the Marquis. ‘More brandy, I think.’

  Mérigot stepped forward, and poured from the decanter.

  ‘You may leave us now.’

  The servant bowed and left the room.

  ‘I have been thinking, my dear Spaniard,’ the Marquis began, ‘how much of our life is like unto this chocolate. We are imprisoned here, in the Bastille, as surely as this crème is secured inside this chocolate. The walls of the prison are as dark, but we are surely the crème within.’

  ‘That is very true,’ I observed, ‘and the cream lies in the chocolate, as the brain lies in the body. Or perhaps,’ I continued, warming to the brilliance of my theme, ‘the raspberry is the brain, the cream is our soul, and the chocolate is our body.’

  I was drunker than I believe I had ever been before. ‘Our body …’ I continued, ‘that can snap so easily, releasing the fluids within.’

  ‘Everything,’ said the Marquis, ‘all of our lives, can be explained by chocolate.’

  ‘Chocolates are as stars in the sky laid out before us,’ I observed gravely. ‘Each one has its own unique identity, but all are part of the main.’

  ‘They are both medicine and delight. We need no other food,’ continued the Marquis.

  We sat in contented silence.

  Then the Marquis jerked forward. ‘But we do need some Armagnac.’

  He leaned forward greedily, but found that he could not reach far enough and slumped back into his chair. It seemed that he could hardly move.

  ‘Mérigot!’ he cried, but no answer came.

  The Marquis was stuck fast to his chair.

 
‘No matter,’ he observed, although his fixed position was giving him some concern.

  I remained in my seat, sparing him the humiliation of asking for my assistance. The night was still, and there was only the sound of the fire to entertain us. I yawned contentedly. Pedro stretched out by the fire and prepared to sleep.

  ‘You are tired,’ the Marquis observed, pointing at me.

  ‘I am, but also content.’

  At last, summoning one great effort, he rose from his chair. ‘You can sleep on my couch if you wish. I have some work to attend to.’

  ‘I find that I do not want to move. I could eat this meal for ever,’ I replied.

  ‘Eat. Drink. Rest What more can we desire?’ he asked, crossing the room to his desk. He then trimmed the wick of his candle, put a further chocolate in his mouth, and began to read from L’Histoire des Filles Célèbres.

  As the fire burned brightly before me, I did not think that I had ever been so warm in all of my captivity, and I fell into a deep and contented sleep.

  All the cares in the world had passed.

  Peace.

  Sleep.

  And the memory of chocolate.

  I dreamed of the dark-red blouses of the women in Chiapas, regretting that I had never made love to them. Here was my chance to capture that moment, if only within the fantasy of dream. I imagined one on either side, undressing me, and then slowly taking off their clothes. It was a hot afternoon, and they were telling me how long it had been since they had seen me, and how much they wanted to share the pleasures of their bodies. One straddled me below, while the other let her breasts fall in my face. Slowly, and with infinite tenderness and burning delight, I was about to be brought to the pinnacle of excitement, when I heard Pedro yelp sharply, as if warning me of some great impending terror. The women instantly retreated from me, seeming to vanish before my eyes, leaving me quite alone.

  Furious at this interruption, and on the point of admonishing my dog, I realised that I had woken up.

  Pedro’s warning had been no dream.

  I tried to focus on the sight before me.

  Could this be true?