“Ah dear creature, without deciding at this moment if you sin or if you do not, I can tell you for a certainty that there is no malice in you, and I believe more surely in your eternal salvation than in that of five or six bishops and cardinals of my acquaintance, who have nevertheless written fine treatises on the canon law.” Miraut swallowed his mess sniffing at it, as if he did not like it, and my father went off with Monsieur l’Abbé Coignard to take a stroll to the _Petit Bacchus_. Thus passed the holy time of Lent at the _Sign of the Reine Pédauque_. But from early Easter morn, when the bells of St. Benoît-le-Bétourné announced the joyful Resurrection, my father spitted chickens, ducks, and pigeons by the dozen, and Miraut, in the corner by the glowing fire-place, sniffed the good smell of fat, wagging his tail with grave and pensive joy. Old, tired, and nearly blind, he still relished the joys of this life, whose ills he accepted with a resignation which made them less unkind for him. He was a sage, and I am not surprised that my mother associated such a reasonable creature in her good works. Having heard High Mass we dined in the savoury-smelling shop. My father brought to this repast a pious joy. He had commonly, as companions, a few attorneys’ clerks, and my good master Monsieur l’Abbé Coignard. This year of grace 1725, at Easter-tide, I remember, my good master brought Monsieur Nicolas Cerise, whom he had dragged from a loft in the Rue des Maçons, where this learned man wrote, day and night, news of the republic of letters for Dutch publishers. On the table a mound of red eggs rose from a wire basket. And when Monsieur l’Abbé Coignard had said the Benedicite, these eggs formed the topic of conversation. “One reads in Ælius Lampridus,” said Monsieur Nicolas Cerise, “that a hen owned by the father of Alexander Severus laid a red egg on the birthday of that child destined to Empire.” “This Lampridus, who had not much intelligence,” said my good master, “had better have left such a tale to the old wives who have spread it abroad. You have too much good sense, sir, to deduce from this ridiculous fable the Christian custom of serving red eggs on Easter Day?” “I do not indeed believe,” replied Monsieur Nicolas Cerise, “that this usage is derived from the egg of Alexander Severus. The only conclusion that I wish to draw from the fact, as reported by Lampridus, is that a red egg, among the heathen, presaged supreme power. For the rest,” he added, “that egg must have been reddened in some manner, for hens do not lay red eggs.” “Excuse me,” said my mother, who was standing by the fire-place decorating the dishes, “in my childhood I saw a black hen who laid eggs shading into brown; that is why I am ready to believe that there are hens whose eggs are red, or of a colour approaching red, as for instance brick-colour.”