The question concerning the ostensible motives of the problematic chicken and its various perambulations has stumped learned scholars for centuries. What might some of the assorted movers, shakers, and luminaries of the eighteenth century answer to this age-old question if it were to be posed to them? Here are some possible answers.

"The chicken was securing adjoining land that rightfully belonged to it."
--Frederick the Great

"It was defending its territory from an upstart weasel."
--Maria Theresa

"The chicken had grown bored with its coop and sought new diversions in the countryside."
--Louis XV

"It was visiting its lovely ancestral lands where there's no d__ed Parliament and everything knows it proper place in the pecking order."
-- George II

"The chicken was trying to avoid the coming deluge."
--Madame de Pompadour

"It was performing a glorious and audacious retreat."
--The Comte de Clermont

"The chicken was occupying an unassailable bit of high ground."
--Leopold Daun

"...to encourage the others."
--Voltaire

"It probably crossed the road to fall down dead in its own dirt, but I own myself at a loss to explain why."
--James Wolfe

"The chicken was looking for a charming field for an encounter. It had heard the pullets whistle and, believe me, there's something charming in the sound."
--George Washington

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