few days ago I read a book written by a young German whose name I
have forgotten, and which has been very well translated into French. In
it you have a beautiful young girl named Charlotte, who, like you,
Elodie, was cutting bread and butter, and like you, cutting it
gracefully, and so prettily that at the sight the young Werther fell in
love with her."

"And it ended in their marrying?" asked Elodie.

"No," replied Evariste; "it ended in Werther's death by violence."

They dined well, they were all very hungry; but the fare was
indifferent. Jean Blaise complained bitterly; he was a great trencherman
and made it a rule of conduct to feed well; and no doubt what urged him
to elaborate his gluttony into a system was the general scarcity. In
every household the Revolution had overturned the cooking pot. The
common run of citizens had nothing to chew upon. Clever folks like Jean
Blaise, who made big profits amid the general wretchedness, went to the
cookshop where they showed their astuteness by stuffing themselves to
repletion. As for Brotteaux who, in this year II of liberty, was living
on chestnuts and bread-crusts, he could remember having supped at Grimod
de la Reyniere's at the near end of the Champs Elysees. Eager to win the
repute of an accomplished gourmand he reeled off, sitting there before
Dame Poitrine's bacon and cabbages, a string of artful kitchen recipes
and wise gastronomic maxims. Presently, when Gamelin protested that a
Republican scorns the pleasures of the table, the old financier, always
a lover of antiquity, gave the young Spartan the true recipe for the
famous black broth.

After dinner, Jean Blaise, who never forgot business, set his itinerant
academy to make studies and sketches of the inn, which struck him as
quite romantic in its dilapidation. While Philippe Desmahis and Philippe
Dubois were drawing the cow-houses the girl Tronche came out to feed the
pigs. The _citoyen_ Pelleport, officer of health, who at the same moment
appeared at the door of the farm kitchen where he had been bestowing his
professional services on the Poitrine baby, stepped up to the artists
and after complimenting them on their talents, which were an honour to
the whole nation, pointed to the Tronche girl in the middle of her
porkers:

"You see that creature," he said, "it is not one girl, it is two girls.
I speak by the letter, understand that. I was amazed at the
extraordinary massiveness of her bony framework and