The wicked and charming Count Arnaud (his last name is Cazanave but nobody in New Orleans bothers) is himself probably the most glamorous and colorful character of the community, widowed now of the presence of Lyle Saxon. Arnaud, who is the greatest wine-opener alive outside of the Stork Club, and who will himself sit down with his most capacious customers and drink bottle for bottle with them while the champagne is flowing, prefers his private drink, a slug of fine bourbon in a cup of black coffee, and his personal waiter stands with his arrangement immediately at hand throughout the business day. A holdover from a more wide-open era in New Orleans, Arnaud is a sly raconteur, a courtly host, and a perceptive gourmet; in short, perfection in a restaurateur.
It doesn't take the detailed and documented reporting of such expert scouts and amateurs of the preposterous as Ludwig Bemelmans to indicate that, however big a green pea he may have been when voyaging in Europe in the past, the American who now attempts to travel in Europe generally and in France specifically is the Gnome-Rhone-Jupiter Whirlwind, super de luxe sucker of all time. The shellacking he took from the coney-catchers and boob-trappers in the naïve old Joe Zelli days when twenty-franc champagne was poured over him in Niagaras at a mere thousand francs a bottle is now regarded by the French with reminiscent wonder and amazement at the limits they placed on their own cupidity in those spacious times. They are well aware that the American tourist of 1947 has been warned at home of what he may expect in the way of hotel reservations and restaurant courtesy and that, if he is still wishful of being rolled in the grand manner, he is very much an addict of folly and should be accommodated the whole way.
Now this is all very well in the homeland, and if Europeans generally want their part of the world to become known as Robber's Roost while Bermuda, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean ports, and Latin America generally are falling over themselves to make their pleasant countries attractive on a something less than ransom basis, let Europe do as it very well pleases.
However, the reappearance of French export products, notably French vintages and French table specialties, might well be a signal for local rejoicing were it not for the circumstance that their prices suggest the confirmed belief in France that once a sucker, anywhere a sucker, and that an American belle poire can be trimmed just as thoroughly three thousand miles away if he hasn't got time to come to Europe. Champagne at ＄120 a case, which formerly sold for ＄45, and Strasbourg foie gras, at ＄16 a pound, which once sold at a dime an ounce; may find a few buyers among the, fortunately, already decreasing war-happy spendthrifts of the easy-going U. S., but it won't work long. There are many and often adequate substitutes for the food and wine products which have formerly been a French monopoly. Their quality is constantly improving, a taste and market for them are being universally promoted and enlarged, and their prices, instead of being inflated, are, with gratifying consistency, being lowered all the time. Almost anyone can tell you that ＄8 a bottle is too much for a mediocre table claret. A Yankee wouldn't pay that for a bottle of bonded bourbon, and it would be a good thing if he promoted the idea that other Yankees won't do it for a fifth-gallon of Château Déplorable, nonvintage, or not very long anyway.
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