Sixty guests gathered at the French ambassador's home Wednesday to pay homage to the Marquis de Lafayette, hero of the American Revolution, over a candlelight dinner featuring dishes from the menu at Lafayette's wedding feast in 1774. A crier in powdered wig and knee britches announced each guest and a trio of costumed chamber musicians played Mozart and other 18th century favorites for the black-tie dinner given by Le Cordon Bleu, the famed Paris cooking school. Those lucky enough to receive invitations to one of the most exclusive social events of Washington's spring season dined on a jelly of oysters in caviar cream sauce, filet of sole, baby squab served in silver cups and a slab of roast venison on a spit which was carried into the dining room on the shoulders of two chefs. Goblets under the Baccarat crystal candelabra, which were decorated with cascades of pink roses, tulips and spring flowers, were filled with six fine French wines and champagne. Dessert was chocolate-covered pineapple ice cream, served in a pineapple shell held by three sculpted chocolate hands. The palate freshener for the seven-course dinner was a sorbet laced with cognac from the 900-acre Cointreau estate in France. ``The guests were pleased to receive invitations, but some people were very displeased they were not coming,'' said Andre Cointreau, a descendant of the French liqueur producers and president of Le Cordon Bleu. ``We were sorry we could not accommodate everyone.'' Besides French Ambassador Jacques Andreani, the guest list included leading Washington journalists and food writers, former U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, Agriculture Secretary Clayton Yeutter and Katharine Graham, chairman of the Washington Post Co. Patrick Martin, 32, a rising star among classical French chefs and a master teacher at Le Cordon Bleu, arrived 10 days ago to begin preparing the dinner. He was assisted by four chefs who labored in the white-tiled basement kitchen of the ambassador's residence in northwest Washington. Cointreau said the dinner Wednesday night included authentic recreations of several foods from the staggering array of 200 dishes served in 30 courses at Lafayette's wedding feast exactly 216 years ago. Lafayette, then just 16, married Adrienne de Noailles, a daughter of one of the wealthiest and most influential families in France, in a Paris ceremony that took place shortly before Lafayette became a captain in the French cavalry. Three years later, Lafayette sailed to America and joined the Revolutionary War as an honorary major general under the command of his close friend, George Washington. He was credited with the defensive military maneuvers that resulted in the British surrender at Yorktown in 1781. Cointreau said the dinner was conceived five years ago as an expression of gratitude to American oil magnate John Moffat, who early in this century bought and restored the crumbling Chavagnal-Lafayette castle in the Auvergne region where Lafayette was born. Moffat housed several hundred French orphans from World War I at the castle, which is now held by trustees of the nonprofit Lafayette Memorial. ``The dinner is our way of saying thank you to America, and the best way to say thank you is to have good people sitting down together at a very good dinner,'' Cointreau said.
