Veal Birds? Tiny pitiful birds kept in pens and fattened against their will? Veal Birds Brumaire? That was a month in the post-Revolutionary calendar. It was named for the fog frequently found in France in autumn.

So, alouettes. or larks, sans tete, or without heads, in the style of the bloody guillotine-happy Revolutionaries during Fog Time. What did they do to the heads? Give them to Robespierre, who would suck them dry.