possible, so we will have to be satisfied with our regrets. Come."

"Where are we going?"

"Faith, I don't know. Ten years ago I should have taken you to the farms
where they fatten pullets. The pullets of Bresse, you must know, have a
European reputation. Bourg was an annex to the great coop of Strasburg.
But during the Terror, as you can readily imagine, these fatteners of
poultry shut up shop. You earned the reputation of being an aristocrat
if you ate a pullet, and you know the fraternal refrain: 'Ah, ca ira, ca
ira--the aristocrats to the lantern!' After Robespierre's downfall
they opened up again; but since the 18th of Fructidor, France has been
commanded to fast, from fowls and all. Never mind; come on, anyway.
In default of pullets, I can show you one thing, the square where
they executed those who ate them. But since I was last in the town the
streets have changed their names. I know the way, but I don't know the
names."

"Look here!" demanded Sir John; "aren't you a Republican?"

"I not a Republican? Come, come! Quite to the contrary. I consider
myself an excellent Republican. I am quite capable of burning off my
hand, like Mucius Scaevola, or jumping into the gulf like Curtius to save
the Republic; but I have, unluckily, a keen sense of the ridiculous.
In spite of myself, the absurdity of things catches me in the side and
tickles me till I nearly die of laughing. I am willing to accept the
Constitution of 1791; but when poor Herault de Sechelles wrote to the
superintendent of the National Library to send him a copy of the laws
of Minos, so that he could model his constitution on that of the Isle
of Crete, I thought it was going rather far, and that we might very well
have been content with those of Lycurgus. I find January, February, and
March, mythological as they were, quite as good as Nivose, Pluviose,
and Ventose. I can't understand why, when one was called Antoine or
Chrystomome in 1789, he should be called Brutus or Cassius in 1793.
Here, for example, my lord, is an honest street, which was called
the Rue des Halles (Market Street). There was nothing indecent or
aristocratic about that, was there? Well, now it is called--Just wait
(Roland read the inscription). Well, now it is called the Rue de la
Revolution. Here's another, which used to be called Notre Dame; it is
now the Rue du Temple. Why Rue du Temple? Probably to perpetuate the
memory of that place where the infamous Simon tried to teach cobbli