At night a green lantern was attached to the horn. At the left
of the building was a walled court pierced by a gate which gave
entrance to the stables. For not only the jolly mariners found
pleasure at the Corne d'Abondance. The wild bloods of the town came
thither to riot and play, to junket and carouse. The inn had seen many
a mad night, and on the stone flooring lay written many an invisible
epitaph.
The host himself was a man of note, one Jean le Borgne, whose cousin
was the agent of D'Aunay in the Tour-D'Aunay quarrel over Acadia in New
France. He had purchased the inn during the year '29, and since that
time it had become the most popular in the city; and as a result of his
enterprise, the Pomme de Pin, in the shadow of the one remaining city
gate, Porte de la Grosse-Horloge, had lost the patronage of the
nobility. Maitre le Borgne recognized the importance of catering more
to the jaded palate than to the palate in normal condition; hence, his
popularity. In truth, he had the most delectable vintages outside the
governor's cellars; they came from Bordeaux, Anjou, Burgundy,
Champagne, and Sicily. His cook was an excommunicated monk from
Touraine, a province, according to the merry Vicar of Meudon, in which
cooks, like poets, were born, not bred.
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