"Oh, how grand is Nature in her creations!" said the canon; "what a marvellous scale of pleasures for the palate from the monstrous wild boar to the fig-pecker,--that exquisite little bird! Glory, glory to thee, eternal gratitude to thee," added he, in the manner of an ejaculatory prayer. "Bravo, Dom Diégo!" cried the doctor, "now are you in the right." "Now he is in materialism, in paganism, and the grossest pantheism," said the intractable abbé. "You will damn him, doctor, you will destroy his soul!" "Still a little patience, my dear abbé," replied the doctor, walking toward another stall. "Soon, in spite of yourself, you will be convinced that I speak truly in extolling the excellence of gluttony, or rather you will think as I do, although you will take occasion to deny the evidence. Now, canon, you are going to see how this gluttony, so dear to you and me, becomes one of the causes of the progress of agriculture, the real basis of the prosperity of the country. And with this subject let me introduce to you my nephew Mathurin, a tiller of those salt meadows, which nourish the only beasts worthy of the gourmand, and which give him those invaluable legs of mutton, those unsurpassed cutlets, those fillets of wonderful beef which even England envies us. I present to you also my nephew Mathurin's wife, native of Le Mans, and familiar with that illustrious school of fattening animals, which produces those pullets and capons known as one of the glories and riches of France." The shop of farmer Mathurin was undeniably less picturesque, less pretty, and by no means so showy as the others, but it had, by way of compensation, an attractive and dignified simplicity. Upon large screens of willow branches, covered with thyme, sage, rosemary, tarragon, and other aromatic herbs, were displayed, in Herculean size, monstrous pieces of beef for roasting, fabulous sirloins, marvellous loins of veal, and those legs and saddles of mutton, and unparalleled cutlets, which have filled the hundred mouths of Rumour with the incomparable flavour of the famous beasts of the salt meadows. Although raw, this delicious meat, surrounded with sweet and pungent herbs, was so delicate and of such a tempting red with its fat of immaculate whiteness, that the glances which Dom Diégo threw upon these specimens of bovine and ovine industry, were nothing less than carnivorous. Half hidden among clusters of water-cresses was a collection of pullets, capons, pure India cocks, and a species of fowl called tardillons, so round and fat and plump, and with a satin skin of such delicacy, that more than one pretty woman might have envied them. "Oh, how pretty they are! how lovely they are!" stammered the canon. "Oh, it is enough to make one lose his head!"