Dr Vallant’s Portefeuilles (Bibliothèque Nationale de
Paris) are a hodgepodge of information, with recipes for gateaux,
remedies in French and Latin, medical case notes, letters, religious
reflections, and poems kept side-by-side. Vallant was the household
physician of famed salonnière Mme de Sablé (d. 1678) and, later, Mlle de
Guise. He was also regularly consulted by Madame’s friends and family
and acted as her secretary. Vallant kept track of all treatments that he
tried and the remedies that proved, or might prove, useful in his
practice. The notebooks, in some ways, have much in common with our
modern personal recipe collections: lots of random bits, from clippings
to notes. But it is the informality of the collection that makes it such
a useful source of information about the process of collecting and
using recipes in early modern France.
The language that Vallant used to describe the transmission of
recipes is intriguing: several of his recipes suggest the ways in which
knowledge was passed to him by monks and nuns, apothecaries, physicians,
and laywomen. Recipes were a form of social currency and were closely
tied to patronage. This isn’t always explicit in English, but emerges
more clearly in the formality of French. The Duchess of Orléans, for
example, seems to have been the originating point for a couple recipes.
Mme de la Haye (wife of the Duchess’ apothecary) ‘gave’ a cure for the
sciatica, while Mme la Ursée (the Orléans’ governess) ‘shared’ a small
pox remedy. The language here suggests that these recipes were gifts of
the Duchess.
The reliance on oral knowledge is also striking. Vallant regularly
noted that recipes had been passed verbally to him. Various
people ‘told’ him their remedies, which he then entered into his
notebooks. Mme la Norrice, for example, ‘said’ that after trying many
remedies for toothaches she found ease only by putting cold water in her
ear. Physician Mr Belay was a particularly frequent source of oral
information. He ‘told’ Vallant a remedy for the ‘colours’ [vaginal
flows] in 1676 and ‘discussed’ several for blood loss in 1681.
Recipes also took winding routes before ending up in Vallant’s
possession. Belay ‘told’ Vallant a remedy for the stone that had been
passed to him by Mr de Fromont, secretary to the Duke of Orléans, who
had it in turn passed it to him. Belay had used the recipe with great
success in treating a mutual patient, Mme de Guise. Vallant also
included in his collection occasional recipes from print sources,
listing some from Mme Fouquet’s famous book and keeping a cut-out
excerpt for Mme Ledran’s balm and unguent. Madame de Sable (Source: Wikipedia Commons)
The Marquise de Sablé was condemned by historian André Crussaire as a hypochondriac (Un Médecin au XVIIe Siècle le Docteur Vallant: Une Malade Imaginaire, Mme de Sablé, Paris,
1910), partly because she kept a household physician and partly because
so much of the notebooks and correspondence focus on health. But a
close inspection reveals that much of the collection was Vallant’s
attempt to keep track of his growing medical practice by writing
down his successful cures. Under the heading ‘Escrouelles’ (King’s Evil,
or scrofula), for example, he provided his case notes and recipe used
to cure a thirty-six year old woman.
Elsewhere in the Portefeuilles, it is difficult to
distinguish between what is purely Vallant’s or Mme de Sablé’s. In one
section, there are several remedies for eye problems; it is perhaps no
coincidence that Mme de Sablé suffered from eye trouble. Three letters
were addressed to Madame directly. All eye remedies were sent by
friends: Abbé Charrier, Mme Daumon, the Marquis de la Motte, Countess
d’Orche, Mr Chartier, Mme de St Ange and Mlle de Vertie. But was this
primarily for her use, or for her physician?
Maybe both.
The books were kept as a practical source of working knowledge for both
doctor and patron. The care taken in identifying a recipe’s sources and
route of transmission was crucial in establishing two matters:
reliability and reciprocity. Many recipes may have been passed on
verbally rather than in writing, but this was no casual matter. As
physician, Vallant needed to know if a recipe could be trusted before he
tried it. As patron, Sablé needed to know the precise source of a
remedy for social reasons: a recipe gained might be a favour owed…
Something to keep in mind the next time you casually take a recipe from a
friend and proceed to cram it into your recipe box without a second
thought.
