CHAPTER 4.XI.
Why monks love to be in kitchens.
This, said Epistemon, is spoke like a true monk; I mean like a right monking monk, not a bemonked monastical monkling.

Truly you put me in mind of some passages that happened at Florence, some twenty years ago, in a company of studious travellers, fond of visiting the learned, and seeing the antiquities of Italy, among whom I was.

As we viewed the situation and beauty of Florence, the structure of the dome, the magnificence of the churches and palaces, we strove to outdo one another in giving them their due; when a certain monk of Amiens, Bernard Lardon by name, quite angry, scandalized, and out of all patience, told us, I don't know what the devil you can find in this same town, that is so much cried up; for my part I have looked and pored and stared as well as the best of you; I think my eyesight is as clear as another body's, and what can one see after all?
There are fine houses, indeed and that's all.

But the cage does not feed the birds.

God and Monsieur St.Bernard, our good patron, be with us! in all this same town I have not seen one poor lane of roasting cooks; and yet I have not a little looked about and sought for so necessary a part of a commonwealth: ay, and I dare assure you that I have pried up and down with the exactness of an informer; as ready to number, both to the right and left, how many, and on what side, we might find most roasting cooks, as a spy would be to reckon the bastions of a town.