“Oh, _ma foi_! don’t speak to me about that business. Why, Monsieur Lavenne, I was had up myself and questioned on the matter by Monsieur de Sartines. As though I had poisoned the brute! I said to him, ‘I know nothing of the matter, but since Atalanta was served every day at the King’s table when he was at Versailles, she may have died of Ribot’s cookery’; for Ribot, as you know, is now the chef at Versailles, a gentleman who stole the recipe of my Sauce Noailles and gave it forth under the name of Sauce à la Ribot. Put his name to my sauce! God’s death, Monsieur Lavenne, a man who will steal another man’s sauce is not above poisoning another man’s dog. Not that I accuse Ribot, poor fool; he has not the spirit to poison a louse, and they say his wife beats him with his own rolling-pin. I accuse him of nothing but theft and stupidity, certainly not of poisoning his Majesty’s dog wilfully. Besides, Monsieur Lavenne, the dog was not poisoned, in my opinion.” “Give us your opinion, Monsieur Brommard.” “Well, it is this way, Monsieur Lavenne—What does all cookery rest on?” “I am sure I don’t know, unless it is the shoulders of the chef.” “No, Monsieur Lavenne, all cookery rests on an egg. The egg is the atlas that supports the world of gastronomy, the chef is the slave of the egg. Think, Monsieur Lavenne, what is the masterpiece of French cookery, the dish that outlives all other dishes, the thing that is found on his Majesty’s table no less than upon the tables of the Bourgeoisie, the thing that is as French as a Frenchman, and which expresses the spirit of our people as no other article of food could express it—the Omelette. Could you make an Omelette without breaking eggs? Aha! tell me that. Then cast your mind’s eye over this extraordinary Monsieur Egg and all his antics and evolutions. Now he permits himself to be boiled plain, and even like that, without frills, naked and in a state of nature, he is excellent, for you will remember that the Marquis de Noailles, when he was dying and almost past food, called for what?—an egg, plainly boiled. “Now he consents to appear in all ways from poached to _perdu_—an excellent recipe for which is to be found in my early edition of the works of Taillevent, who, as you know, was master-cook to his Majesty King Charles V. “Now he is the soul of a _vol-au-vent_, now of a sauce; not a pie-crust fit to eat but stands by virtue of my lord the egg, and should all the hens in the world commit suicide, to-morrow every chef in France worthy of the name would fall on his spit, as Vatel fell on his sword, and with more reason, for fish is but a course in a dinner, whereas the egg is the cement that holds all the castle of cookery together.” “_Pardieu_, Monsieur Brommard,” said Lavenne, laughing, “you are quite a philosopher, and I shall certainly take off my hat to the next hen I meet. But, tell me, what has an egg to do with the poisoning of Atalanta?”