Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 3.djvu/67

 as also that of Argonauts, when they have completed their studies under the direction of the galley-serjeants, in working, in the port of Toulon, the dormant navigation on board a vessel in dock. If notes were pleasing to me, I could here seize the opportunity of making some very learned remarks. I should, perhaps, go into a profound disquisition, but I am about to paint the paradise of these bacchanalians; the colours are prepared,—let us finish the picture.

If they drink at Guillotin's they eat also, and the mysteries of the kitchen of this place of delights are well worthy of being known. The little father Guillotin has no butcher, but he has a purveyor; and in his brass stewpans, the verdigrise of which never poisons, the dead horse is transformed into beef à-la-mode; the thighs of the dead dogs found in Rue Guénegaud become legs of mutton from the salt-marshes; and the magic of a piquant sauce gives to the staggering bob (dead born veal) of the cow-feeder the appetizing look of that of Pontoise. We are told that the cheer in winter is excellent, when the rot prevails; and if ever (during M. Delaveau's administration) bread were scarce in summer during the "massacre of the innocents," mutton was to be had here at a very cheap rate.

In this country of metamorphoses the hare never had the right of citizenship; it was compelled to yield to the rabbit, and the rabbit—how happy the rats are!

"O fortunati nimium—si nôrint."

It was the Domine of St. Mandé who taught me this quotation; he told me it was Latin, perhaps it may be Greek or Hebrew;—no matter, I leave it, come what may, to the will of God; but still, if the rats could ever have seen what I have seen, unless they had been an ingrate and perverse race, they would have opened a subscription for the erection of a statue to the Liberator, little father Guillotin.

One evening, led by my inclination, which a good