For three days, I remember, he tried to live
on bread, jam, and preserved fruit; but the sweetness of such a diet
became nauseous to him--even as it became nauseous to our soldiers when
the authorities bombarded them with jam in South Africa. It was very
difficult to provide something to my father's taste; there was no poultry
and there were no eggs. It was at this time that Saby sold us a few
rabbits, but, again, _toujours lapin_ was not satisfactory.
People were now beginning to partake of sundry strange things. Bats were
certainly eaten before the siege ended, though by no means in such
quantities as some have asserted. However, there were already places where
dogs and cats, skinned and prepared for cooking, were openly displayed for
sale. Labouchere related, also, that on going one day into a restaurant
and seeing _cochon de lait_, otherwise sucking-pig, mentioned in the menu,
he summoned the waiter and cross-questioned him on the subject, as he
greatly doubted whether there were any sucking-pigs in all Paris. "Is it
sucking-pig?" he asked the waiter. "Yes, monsieur," the man replied.
But Labby was not convinced. "Is it a little pig?" he inquired.
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