Fish is hardly in great request. One is likely to have too much of it on the numerous fast days. Still, out of the Claire they draw excellent barbel and eels; there are carp in a near-by pond, and splendid trout in the brooks that feed the Rapide. The lads bring in many. If you go to Paris you can eat salt herring taken in the North Sea. All through the spring, furthermore, the St. Aliquis folk have had their fill of frogs' legs from the castle moat and the numerous bogs, and Conon has a "snail bed" to provide snails for garnishings and salads during Lent and on Fridays. [Sidenote: Game Birds and Poultry] One cannot stay at the castle long and not discover the vast importance of soup. One partakes thereof at least twice per day: "dried peas and bacon water," watercress soup, cabbage soup, cheese soup, and "poor man's soup" (made up of odds and ends collected on short warning), and fish soups for Lent. All the better soups are spiced with marjoram, sage, and sweet basil, if not with the favorite condiment, pepper. But what are soups compared with meat pies? Whenever the castle cook is in doubt how to please their lordships he decides upon a noble pasty. Much thought has been concentrated upon this subject. There are little poems to be memorized by illiterate cooks explaining this triumph of their mystery--_e.g._, that they should use "three young partridges large and fat, not forgetting six quail put on their side"; add to these thrushes, some bacon, some sour grapes, and a little salt. Then if all is made aright, the crust nicely rolled of pure flour, and the "oven of proper heat with the bottom quite free from ashes," when all is baked enough "you will have a dish to feast on"! Other pasties can be made of chickens, venison, salmon, eels, pigeons, geese, and other kinds of meat. Probably, in fact, more energy goes into making the pasties than into any other one form of culinary effort. The St. Aliquis folk are not at all vegetarians, but they cannot eat meat forever, and the poorer peasants seldom touch flesh save on important feast days. The cooks have at their disposal onions and garlic, cabbages and beets, carrots and artichokes, lentils and both long and broad beans, peas, turnips, lettuce, parsley, water cress--in short, nearly all the vegetables of a different age save the all-important potato. Turnips are in favor, and figure in far more dietaries than they will do later. Cabbages, too, are in request: there are Roman white cabbages, huge Easter cabbages, and especially the Senlis cabbages, renowned for their excellent odor. Cucumbers are supposed to cause fever, but Herman raises some in the garden for the salads.