What delightful feasts are those held in Vagrery! Does, stags, wild-boars, killed by the Vagres the day before in the thickets of the forest that shade the fastness of Allange--all, together with the oxen from the wagons, have been dispatched and grilled over a roaring oven. What! An oven in a forest? An oven large enough to embrace oxen, does, stags and wild-boars? Yes; the good God has dug for the good Vagres a number of large pits in the secluded fastnesses of Allange. They are spacious craters, now extinct like other volcanic apertures in Auvergne. Is not one of these deep semi-circular grottoes, in which a man can stand upright, a veritable bake-house? Fill up the grotto with dry wood; one or two dead oaks will suffice; set the pyre on fire; it burns up high and becomes a brasier: the bottom, the walls, the lava vault--all are soon red hot, and into the chasm, ablaze like the mouth of hell, stags, does, whole wild-boars and oxen are rolled in to broil. That done, the opening of the grotto is closed with lava rocks, a huge oven of glowing embers. Four or five hours later, oxen and game, grilled to the point, are served steaming and toothsome upon the table. What! Tables also in Vagrery! Certes, and covered with the finest of green carpet. What table? What carpet? The lawn of a forest clearing. And for seats? Again that lawn. For tent the lofty oaks; for ornaments the arms suspended from the branches. For dome the starry sky. For chandelier the moon at her fullest. For perfumery the night odor of wild flowers. For musicians the nightingales and all the other songsters of the woods. Several Vagres, placed on watch at the outskirt of the forest and near the approaches of the fastnesses of Allange, guarded the troop against a surprise in case that, the sack and burning of the villa becoming known, the Frankish counts and dukes of the region should fear an attack upon their own burgs, and start with their leudes in the pursuit of the Vagres. Despite his ire, Bishop Cautin excelled himself as a cook. Long before had a certain sauce known to be a favorite with the bishop been the subject of talk in Vagrery. The holy man was ordered to produce it. He did. He filled with it a large caldron into which each one dipped his roast, whether of game or beef--it was a toothsome sauce, made of old wine and oil, aromated with wild thyme. It was pronounced delectable. Biting into her Vagre's roast with her white teeth the bishopess remarked: "I now no longer wonder that he who was my husband always showed himself so implacable towards his kitchen slaves, and that he had them whipped for their slightest negligence--the seigneur bishop was a better cook than any of them. No wonder he was hard to please!"