The Rabouilleuse, clever enough to foresee Fanchette’s probable defection,—­there is nothing like the exercise of power for teaching policy,—­was already resolved to do without a servant.  For six months she had studied, without seeming to do so, the culinary operations that made Fanchette a cordon-bleu worthy of cooking for a doctor.  In the matter of choice living, doctors are on a par with bishops.  The doctor had brought Fanchette’s talents to perfection.  In the provinces the lack of occupation and the monotony of existence turn all activity of mind towards the kitchen.  People do not dine as luxuriously in the country as they do in Paris, but they dine better; the dishes are meditated upon and studied.  In rural regions we often find some Careme in petticoats, some unrecognized genius able to serve a simple dish of haricot-beans worthy of the nod with which Rossini welcomed a perfectly-rendered measure.

When studying for his degree in Paris, the doctor had followed a course of chemistry under Rouelle, and had gathered some ideas which he afterwards put to use in the chemistry of cooking.  His memory is famous in Issoudun for certain improvements little known outside of Berry.  It was he who discovered that an omelette is far more delicate when the whites and the yolks are not beaten together with the violence which cooks usually put into the operation.  He considered that the whites should be beaten to a froth and the yolks gently added by degrees; moreover a frying-pan should never be used, but a “cagnard” of porcelain or earthenware.  The “cagnard” is a species of thick dish standing on four feet, so that when it is placed on the stove the air circulates underneath and prevents the fire from cracking it.  In Touraine the “cagnard” is called a “cauquemarre.”  Rabelais, I think, speaks of a “cauquemarre” for cooking cockatrice eggs, thus proving the antiquity of the utensil.  The doctor had also found a way to prevent the tartness of browned butter; but his secret, which unluckily he kept to his own kitchen, has been lost.

Flore, a born fryer and roaster, two qualities that can never be acquired by observation nor yet by labor, soon surpassed Fanchette.  In making herself a cordon-bleu she was thinking of Jean-Jacques’s comfort; though she was, it must be owned, tolerably dainty.  Incapable, like all persons without education, of doing anything with her brains, she spent her activity upon household matters.  She rubbed up the furniture till it shone, and kept everything about the house in a state of cleanliness worthy of Holland.  She managed the avalanches of soiled linen and the floods of water that go by the name of “the wash,” which was done, according to provincial usage, three times a year.  She kept a housewifely eye to the linen, and mended it carefully.  Then, desirous of learning little by little the secret of the family property, she acquired the very limited business knowledge which Rouget possessed, and increased