Land Parcels 169, 172,12 August - The Arize / Mr Fallacy

From there, in the far background, one sees the Arize glisten which has its source up there in the heart of the pine-trees, on the side of the cirque of Caplong and splits, around the mill of Cussou , the meadows of Toch, with its crystal waters (on one side the Gascogne, on the other the Languedoc), causing to go pale the linguistic interferences of this poitevin researcher badly in need of a germano-philologo-sorbonnard thesis under the supervision of his gallo-roman masters in the service of the Nouvelle France and its Prize, crowned by a choice menu (14 July 1944) : hot pâté, aspic of foie gras with port, piece of beef with spring vegetables,
“bombe glaçée”, fruit, coffee, liqueurs, bordeaux, bourgogne and champagne uniting all votes, which is quite different from gorging oneself with broad beans and sour wine, with leek and head of mutton boiled in the ‘popinae’ * of rue Cavalotti *, at the time of scanty fare.

One has not forgotten that the son of the comedian Aesop had dissolved in vinegar a pearl worn by Metella *, thus swallowing with one mouthful thirty thousand ecus. One knows that the sons of Arrius * had nightingales served to them because this dish was most expensive, that certain people appreciated only the oysters of Cap Ferret accompanied by the white wine of Buzet, that others were able to single out by their flavour the country of a young wild boar or of a wood pigeon or the age of this Petrus * which sets on fire the lungs of the guests.

Mr Fallacy for one insists on plates and glasses reflecting the light and the carafes not showing the trace of fingers or the rest of hardened sediment on their transparent bottom. This is nothing, but it is a crime to neglect it, he explains learnedly while extracting from a little wicker basket his meal cooked at Hazelnut-Borough and which has journeyed by bus ; missing only the black trout caught above Estaniels, the one which able fingers hook by the gills in the cavities of the moss-covered rocks, at the bottom of ice-cold water, or which a discreetly exploded dynamite cartridge pushes belly towards the air to the surface of the wave unbeknown by the Guard on duty. For the agents of the fiscus pullulate on the banks, affirming that the trout have fled from Cesar’s fish preserves and that everything good and beautiful nourished by the seas, the forests, the rivers, all this is subject to imperial levying. Mr Fallacy does not fear Cesar to whom he pays taxes, no more than he fears the Guard whose daughter keeps the inn and from whom he buys yellow drinks ; but he does not grant that this potentate dare control his food and hence prevent him from neglecting the wild boar of the Laurentin * who has no flavour because he feeds on herbs and reeds originating in marshland in favour of the wild boar of Aston who only feeds on acorns and whose flesh is good only for those who do not like flabby meats. As for the croustades, the recently held Competition at the departmental trade show, with a jury presided over by Mr local M.P. and Mr Radiospeaker organizer of the game of the Mille Pistoles *, does not mean that they will be equal in quality to the ones he tasted at the fair of Ax-les-Thermes around the years thousand nine hundred and thirty, washed down with these thick wines aged by boiling and which imperatively had to be baptized, perhaps in remembrance of those dying of thirst in Ravenna, a city to which it happened that water was lacking : “A not very meritorious hotelier at Ravenna duped me well ; I asked for wine with water, it’s pure wine which he made me drink.

*Popinae, Horace qualified the popinae as filthy and grimy-greasy places.
*Cavalotti : Felice Cavalotti, (1842-1898), journalist , pamphletist, caricaturist, publicist, Italian left-wing politician. Involved with the Risorgimento – Garibaldi
etc... dies in a duel against Feruccio Macola, director of the Gazetta de Venesia.

1. Metella Cf : La Vie Parisienne (opera bouffe) by Jacques Offenbach (1819-1890)

created in the Théatre Royal of Paris in 1866
*Arrius, roman senator of the end of the Ist century, died after 105.

1. Wild boar of the Laurentin. Pliny “It was P. Servilius Refus who first presented a whole boar on his table”.

* Petrus: Wine of the wine producing region Pomerol near Bordeaux, exceptional wine : Lafitte Rotschild Petrus
*Mille Pistoles – Game of the Thousand Francs, created by Henri Kubnick in 1958, on France Inter, a daily programme (it became the game of the thousand euros subsequently). From Lucien Jeunesse – presenter during 30 years – this sentence by his listeners. “Until tomorrow if you please!”. Louis XIV had presented to Racine and Boileau a thousand pistols each which makes 20.000 pounds. Henri IV. He lost at gambling a thousand pistols. Cf. Académie Française : pistole from Emile Littré Cf : Manon ,comic opera by Massenet