The reason of a custom, or rather a necessity, which one would think a nation so celebrated for their gastronomical taste would recoil from, is really, it is believed, that the ordinary French porcelain is so very inferior that it cannot endure the preparatory heat for dinner. The common white pottery, for example, which is in general use, and always found at the cafes, will not bear vicinage* to a brisk kitchen fire for half-an-hour. Now, if we only had that treaty of commerce with France which has been so often on the point of completion, the fabrics of our unrivalled potteries, in exchange for their capital wines, would be found throughout France. The dinners of both nations would be improved: the English would gain a delightful beverage, and the French, for the first time in their lives, would dine off hot plates. An unanswerable instance of the advantages of commercial reciprocity.*
* Vicinage is a rare form of the word vicinity, or nearness, favouring the Old French vicenage. Again, Disraeli lets a little foreign delicacy creep in and then knocks it down with English cottage roughness. See Ralph Waldo Emerson on Strong Speech.
* This was the line that John Bright, speaking in favour of the Cobden-Chevalier treaty, read out before the Commons with the utmost glee. At the time when Disraeli published his novel, in 1844, Bright and his friend and mentor Richard Cobden were making a nuisance of themselves trying to get Parliament to embrace free trade, and Disraeli’s praise was tongue-in-cheek. In 1846, the protectionist Corn Laws were repealed amidst tumultuous scenes, and in 1860 the Cobden-Chevalier treaty was Cobden’s crowning glory; it had taken sixteen years but Bright had his gentle revenge on the author of Coningsby. See Bright on The Repeal of the Corn Laws.