This anecdote recalls to me my townsman, General P. Sibuet, long the chief aide of Napoleon, and who was killed in 1813 at the passage of the Bober.

He was eighteen years old, and had at that time the appetite by which nature announces that its possessor is a perfect man, and went one night into the kitchen of Genin, an inn keeper of Belley, where the old men of the town used to meet to eat chestnuts and drink the new white wine called in the country vin bourru.

The old men were not hungry and paid no attention to him.  His digestive powers were not shaken though, and he said “I have just left the table, but I will bet that I eat a whole turkey.”

“If you eat it I will pay for it,” said Bouvier du Bouchet, a rich farmer who was present, “and if you do not I will eat what is left and you shall pay for it.” [Footnote:  This sentence is patois, and the translator inserts the original.  “Sez vosu meze, z’u payo, repondit Bouvier du Bouchet, gros fermier qui se trouvait present; e sez vos caca en rotaz, i-zet vo ket paire et may ket mezerai la restaz.”]

They set to work at once, and the young athlete at once cut off a wing, he ate it at two mouthfulls and cleaned his teeth by gnawing the bone and drank a glass of wine as an interlude.

He then went into the thigh which he ate and drank another glass of wine to prepare a passage for the rest.  The second went the same way, and he had come to the last limb when the unfortunate farmer said, “alas!  I see it is all over, but Mr. Sibouet as I have to pay, let me eat a bit.” [Footnote:  This also is patois.  “Hai! ze vaie praou qu’izet fotu; m’ez, monche Chibouet, poez kaet zu daive paiet, lesse m’en a m’en mesiet on mocho.”]

Prosper was as good a fellow as he was a soldier, and consented.  The farmer had the carcass at spolia opima, and paid for the fowl with a good grace.

General Sibuet used always to love to tell of this feat of his youth.  He said that his admitting the farmer to eat was a pure courtesy, and that he could easily have won the bet.  His appetite at forty permitted none to doubt the assertion.

Brillat-Savarin, says in a note, “I quote this fragment of the patois of Bugey with pleasure.  In it is found the English ’th and the Greek 0, and in the word praou and others, a dipthong existing in no language, the sound of which no character can describe.”  (See 3d Volume of the Memoirs of the Royal Society of Antiquarians of France.)

Meditation V.

Food in germs.

Section first.

Definitions.

What is understood by aliments?

Popular answer.  All that nourishes us.

Scientific answer.  By aliments are understood the substances which, when submitted to the stomach, may be assimulated by digestion, and repair the losses which the human body is subjected to in life.