My name is Elme Laurent Jacques Ménétrier. My father, Léonard Ménétrier, kept a cookshop at the sign of Queen Pédauque, who, as everyone knows, wag web-footed like the geese and ducks.
His penthouse was opposite Saint Benoit le Bétourné between Mistress Gilles the haberdasher at the Three Virgins and M. Blaizot, the bookseller at the sign of Saint Catherine, not far from the Little Bacchus, the gate of which, decorated with vine branches, was at the corner of the Rue des Cordiers. He loved me very much, and when, after supper, I lay in my little bed, he took my hand in his, lifted one after the other of my fingers, beginning with the thumb, and said:
“This one has killed him, this one has plucked him, this one has fricasseed him and that one has eaten him, and the little Riquiqui had nothing at all. Sauce, sauce, sauce,” he used to add, tickling the hollow of my hand with my own little finger.
And mightily he laughed, and I laughed too, dropping off to sleep, and my mother used to affirm that the smile still remained on my lips on the following morning.
My father was a good cookshop-keeper and feared God. For this he carried on holidays the banner of the Cooks’ Guild, on which a fine-looking St Laurence was embroidered, with his grill and a golden palm. He used to say to me:
“Jacquot, thy mother is a holy and worthy woman.”
He liked to repeat this sentence frequently. True, my mother went to church every Sunday with a prayer-book printed in big type. She could hardly read small print, which, as she said, drew the eyes out of her head.
My father used to pass an hour or two nightly at the tavern of the Little Bacchus; there also Jeannetæ the hurdy-gurdy player and Catherine the lacemaker were regular frequenters. And every time he returned home somewhat later than usual he said in a soft voice, while pulling his cotton night-cap on:
“Barbe, sleep in peace; as I have just said to the limping cutler: ‘You are a holy and worthy woman.’”
I was six years old when, one day, readjusting his apron, with him always a sign of resolution, he said to me: