"A donkey is infinitely better eating than beef or mutton, indeed I do not know any meat which is better. This was so soon discovered by the French, during the siege of Paris, that donkey meat was about five times the price of horse meat. At Voisin's there was almost every day a joint of cold donkey for breakfast, and it was greatly preferred to anything else. Let any one who doubts the excellence of cold donkey slay one of these weak-minded animals, cook him, and eat him." Rats he did not appreciate so much: "The objection to them is that when cooked their flesh is gritty. This objection is, however, somewhat Epicurean, for, except for this grittiness, they are a wholesome and excellent article of food. I am surprised that there is not a society for the promotion of eating rats. Why should not prisoners be fed with these nourishing and prolific little animals?" His account of how he got a leg of mutton into Paris after the capitulation, when, in spite of the siege being raised, the difficulties of procuring food were almost as insurmountable as before, was one of his most amusing _contes_. He rode out to Versailles,[13] where he procured the longed-for joint, but, when he started on his return journey, a sentinel of Versailles refused to allow the meat to leave the town, and actually took it away from him. Desperately he decided to appeal to the better side of the Prussian's nature, and explained to him that he was in love, indeed, that to love was the fate of all mortals. The warrior sighed and pensively assented: Labouchere judged that he was most likely thinking of his distant Gretchen, and shamelessly followed up his advantage: "My lady love is in Paris," {140} he proceeded pathetically, "long have I sighed in vain. I am taking her now a leg of mutton--on this leg hangs all my hope of bliss--if I present myself to her with this token of my devotion she may yield to my suit. Oh, full of feeling, beloved of beauteous women, German warrior, can you refuse me?" Of course the sentinel yielded, and the correspondent, who, needless to say, had no lady love in the capital, bore it off in triumph. He enjoyed it for dinner that evening in company with Mr. Frank Lawley and Mr. Denis Bingham, in whose journal for that day occurs the following entry: "On their return from Versailles together, Labouchere and Lawley brought me a leg of mutton. And what a treat it was for our small household and dear neighbours! And an Italian lady brought us a large loaf of white bread, and we feasted and were merry, and measured our girths, and promised ourselves that we would soon get into condition again, for we were lamentably pulled down."[14]