"You can have some eels." "Oh! we will dispense with the eels," said Chicot. "I think, M. Briquet," replied the cook, "that you would regret it if you had not tasted my eels." "What! are they rarities?" "I nourish them in a particular manner." "Oh, oh!" "Yes," added Gorenflot; "it appears that the Romans or the Greeks--I forget which--nourished their lampreys as Eusebius does his eels. He read of it in an old author called Suetonius." "Yes, monsieur, I mince the intestines and livers of fowls and game with a little pork, and make a kind of sausage meat, which I throw to my eels, and they are kept in soft water, often renewed, in which they become large and fat. The one which I shall offer you to-day weighs nine pounds." "It must be a serpent!" said Chicot. "It swallowed a chicken at a meal." "And how will it be dressed?" "Skinned and fried in anchovy paste, and done with bread crumbs; and I shall have the honor of serving it up with a sauce flavored with garlic and allspice, lemons and mustard." "Perfect!" cried Chicot. Brother Eusebius breathed again. "Then we shall want sweets," said Gorenflot. "I will invent something that shall please you." "Well, then, I trust to you; be worthy of my confidence." Eusebius bowed and retired. Ten minutes after, they sat down, and the programme was faithfully carried out. They began like famished men, drank Rhine wine, Burgundy and Hermitage, and then attacked that of the fair lady. "What do you think of it?" asked Gorenflot. "Good, but light. What is your fair petitioner's name?" "I do not know; she sent an ambassador." They ate as long as they could, and then sat drinking and talking, when suddenly a great noise was heard. "What is that?" asked Chicot. "It is the exercise which commences." "Without the chief? Your soldiers are badly disciplined, I fear." "Without me! never!" cried Gorenflot, who had become excited with wine. "That cannot be, since it is I who command--I who instruct--and stay, here is Brother Borromée, who comes to take my orders." Indeed, as he spoke, Borromée entered, throwing on Chicot a sharp and oblique glance. "Reverend prior," said he, "we only wait for you to examine the arms and cuirasses." "Cuirasses!" thought Chicot, "I must see this," and he rose quietly. "You will be present at our maneuvers?" said Gorenflot, rising in his turn, like a block of marble on legs. "Your arm, my friend; you shall see some good instruction." CHAPTER XXI. BROTHER BORROMÉE. When Chicot, sustaining the reverend prior, arrived in the courtyard, he found there two bands of one hundred men each, waiting for their commander. About fifty among the strongest and most zealous had helmets on their heads and long swords hanging to belts from their waists. Others displayed with pride bucklers, on which they loved to rattle an iron gauntlet. Brother Borromée took a helmet from the hands of a novice, and placed it on his head. While he did so, Chicot looked at it and smiled.