This functionary made a practice of breakfasting on two fresh eggs.

He kept chickens in his yard, and added to his mania for eating fresh eggs that of boiling them himself.

Neither his wife nor his servant, in fact no one, according to him, knew how to boil an egg properly; he did it watch in hand, and boasted that he carried off the palm of egg-boiling from all the world.
For two years he had boiled his eggs with a success which earned him many witticisms.

But now, every night for a whole month, the eggs were taken from his hen-house, and hard-boiled eggs substituted.
The sub-prefect was at his wits' end, and lost his reputation as the "sous-prefet a l'oeuf." Finally he was forced to breakfast on other things.

Yet he never suspected the Knights of Idleness, whose trick had been cautiously played.