Part 8 (1/2)

The vine, acclimatised and propagated by the Gauls, ever since the followers of Brennus had brought it from Italy, five hundred years before the Christian era, never ceased to be productive, and even to const.i.tute the natural wealth of the country (Fig. 81 and 82). In the sixteenth century, Liebault enumerated nineteen sorts of grapes, and Olivier de Serres twenty-four, amongst which, notwithstanding the eccentricities of the ancient names, we believe that we can trace the greater part of those plants which are now cultivated in France. For instance, it is known that the excellent vines of Thomery, near Fontainebleau, which yield in abundance the most beautiful table grape which art and care can produce, were already in use in the reign of Henry IV. (Fig. 83).

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 83.--The Winegrower, drawn and engraved in the Sixteenth Century, by J. Amman.]

In the time of the Gauls the custom of drying grapes by exposing them to the sun, or to a certain amount of artificial heat, was already known; and very soon after, the same means were adopted for preserving plums, an industry in which then, as now, the people of Tours and Rheims excelled.

Drying apples in an oven was also the custom, and formed a delicacy which was reserved for winter and spring banquets. Dried fruits were also brought from abroad, as mentioned in the ”Book of Street Cries in Paris:”--

”Figues de Melites sans fin, J'ai roisin d'outre mer, roisin.”

(”Figs from Malta without end, And grapes from over the sea.”)

Butchers' Meat.--According to Strabo, the Gauls were great eaters of meat, especially of pork, whether fresh or salted. ”Gaul,” says he, ”feeds so many flocks, and, above all, so many pigs, that it supplies not only Rome, but all Italy, with grease and salt meat.” The second chapter of the Salic law, comprising nineteen articles, relates entirely to penalties for pig-stealing; and in the laws of the Visigoths we find four articles on the same subject.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 84.--Swineherd.

Ill.u.s.tration: Fig 85.--A Burgess at Meals.

Miniatures from the Calendar of a Book of Hours.--Ma.n.u.script of the Sixteenth Century.]

In those remote days, in which the land was still covered with enormous forests of oak, great facilities were offered for breeding pigs, whose special liking for acorns is well known. Thus the bishops, princes, and lords caused numerous droves of pigs to be fed on their domains, both for the purpose of supplying their own tables as well as for the fairs and markets. At a subsequent period, it became the custom for each household, whether in town or country, to rear and fatten a pig, which was killed and salted at a stated period of the year; and this custom still exists in many provinces. In Paris, for instance, there was scarcely a bourgeois who had not two or three young pigs. During the day these unsightly creatures were allowed to roam in the streets; which, however, they helped to keep clean by eating up the refuse of all sorts which was thrown out of the houses. One of the sons of Louis le Gros, while pa.s.sing, on the 2nd of October, 1131, in the Rue du Martroi, between the Hotel de Ville and the church of St. Gervais, fractured his skull by a fall from his horse, caused by a pig running between that animal's legs. This accident led to the first order being issued by the provosts, to the effect that breeding pigs within the town was forbidden. Custom, however, deep-rooted for centuries, resisted this order, and many others on the same subject which followed it: for we find, under Francis I., a license was issued to the executioner, empowering him to capture all the stray pigs which he could find in Paris, and to take them to the Hotel Dieu, when he should receive either five sous in silver or the head of the animal.

It is said that the holy men of St. Antoine, in virtue of the privilege attached to the popular legend of their patron, who was generally represented with a pig, objected to this order, and long after maintained the exclusive right of allowing their pigs to roam in the streets of the capital.

The obstinate determination with which every one tried to evade the administrative laws on this subject, is explained, in fact, by the general taste of the French nation for pork. This taste appears somewhat strange at a time when this kind of food was supposed to engender leprosy, a disease with which France was at that time overrun.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 86.--Stall of Carved Wood (Fifteenth Century), representing the Proverb, ”Margaritas ante Porcos,” ”Throwing Pearls before Swine,” from Rouen Cathedral.]

Pigs' meat made up generally the greater part of the domestic banquets.

There was no great feast at which hams, sausages, and black puddings were not served in profusion on all the tables; and as Easter Day, which brought to a close the prolonged fastings of Lent, was one of the great feasts, this food formed the most important dish on that occasion. It is possible that the necessity for providing for the consumption of that day originated the celebrated ham fair, which was and is still held annually on the Thursday of Pa.s.sion Week in front of Notre-Dame, where the dealers from all parts of France, and especially from Normandy and Lower Brittany, a.s.sembled with their swine.

Sanitary measures were taken in Paris and in the various towns in order to prevent the evil effects likely to arise from the enormous consumption of pork; public officers, called _languayeurs_, were ordered to examine the animals to ensure that they had not white ulcers under the tongue, these being considered the signs that their flesh was in a condition to communicate leprosy to those who partook of it.

For a long time the retail sale of pork was confined to the butchers, like that of other meat. Salt or fresh pork was at one time always sold raw, though at a later period some retailers, who carried on business princ.i.p.ally among the lowest orders of the people, took to selling cooked pork and sausages. They were named _charcuitiers_ or _saucissiers_. This new trade, which was most lucrative, was adopted by so many people that parliament was forced to limit the number of _charcuitiers_, who at last formed a corporation, and received their statutes, which were confirmed by the King in 1475.

Amongst the privileges attached to their calling was that of selling red herrings and sea-fish in Lent, during which time the sale of pork was strictly forbidden. Although they had the exclusive monopoly of selling cooked pork, they were at first forbidden to buy their meat of any one but of the butchers, who alone had the right of killing pigs; and it was only in 1513 that the _charcuitiers_ were allowed to purchase at market and sell the meat raw, in opposition to the butchers, who in consequence gradually gave up killing and selling pork (Fig. 87).

Although the consumption of butchers' meat was not so great in the Middle Ages as it is now, the trade of a butcher, to which extraordinary privileges were attached, was nevertheless one of the industries which realised the greatest profits.

We know what an important part the butchers played in the munic.i.p.al history of France, as also of Belgium; and we also know how great their political influence was, especially in the fifteenth century.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 87.--The Pork-butcher (_Charcutier_).--Fac-simile of a Miniature in a Charter of the Abbey of Solignac (Fourteenth Century).]

The existence of the great slaughter-house of Paris dates back to the most remote period of monarchy. The parish church of the corporation of butchers, namely, that of St. Pierre aux Boeufs in the city, on the front of which were two sculptured oxen, existed before the tenth century. A Celtic monument was discovered on the site of the ancient part of Paris, with a bas-relief representing a wild bull carrying three cranes standing among oak branches. Archaeology has chosen to recognise in this sculpture a Druidical allegory, which has descended to us in the shape of the triumphal car of the Prize Ox (Fig. 88). The butchers who, for centuries at least in France, only killed sheep and pigs, proved themselves most jealous of their privileges, and admitted no strangers into their corporation. The proprietors.h.i.+p of stalls at the markets, and the right of being admitted as a master butcher at the age of seven years and a day, belonged exclusively to the male descendants of a few rich and powerful families. The Kings of France alone, on their accession, could create a new master butcher. Since the middle of the fourteenth century the ”Grande Boucherie” was the seat of an important jurisdiction, composed of a mayor, a master, a proctor, and an attorney; it also had a judicial council before which the butchers could bring up all their cases, and an appeal from which could only be considered by Parliament. Besides this court, which had to decide cases of misbehaviour on the part of the apprentices, and all their appeals against their masters, the corporation had a counsel in Parliament, as also one at the Chatelet, who were specially attached to the interests of the butchers, and were in their pay.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 88.--The Holy Ox.--Celtic Monument found in Paris under the Choir of Notre-Dame in 1711, and preserved in the Musee de Cluny et des Thermes.]

Although bound, at all events with their money, to follow the calling of their fathers, we find many descendants of ancient butchers' families of Paris, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, abandoning their stalls to fill high places in the state, and even at court. It must not be concluded that the rich butchers in those days occupied themselves with the minor details of their trade; the greater number employed servants who cut up and retailed the meat, and they themselves simply kept the accounts, and were engaged in dealing through factors or foremen for the purchase of beasts for their stalls (Fig. 89). One can form an opinion of the wealth of some of these tradesmen by reading the enumeration made by an old chronicler of the property and income of Guillaume de Saint-Yon, one of the princ.i.p.al master butchers in 1370. ”He was proprietor of three stalls, in which meat was weekly sold to the amount of 200 _livres parisis_ (the livre being equivalent to 24 francs at least), with an average profit of ten to fifteen per cent.; he had an income of 600 _livres parisis_; he possessed besides his family house in Paris, four country-houses, well supplied with furniture and agricultural implements, drinking-cups, vases, cups of silver, and cups of onyx with silver feet, valued at 100 francs or more each. His wife had jewels, belts, purses, and trinkets, to the value of upwards of 1,000 gold francs (the gold franc was worth 24 livres); long and short gowns trimmed with fur; and three mantles of grey fur. Guillaume de Saint-Yon had generally in his storehouses 300 ox-hides, worth 24 francs each at least; 800 measures of fat, worth 3-1/2 sols each; in his sheds, he had 800 sheep worth 100 sols each; in his safes 500 or 600 silver florins of ready money (the florin was worth 12 francs, which must be multiplied five times to estimate its value in present currency), and his household furniture was valued at 12,000 florins. He gave a dowry of 2,000 florins to his two nieces, and spent 3,000 florins in rebuilding his Paris house; and lastly, as if he had been a n.o.ble, he used a silver seal.”

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 89.--The Butcher and his Servant, drawn and engraved by J. Amman (Sixteenth Century).]

We find in the ”Menagier de Paris” curious statistics respecting the various butchers' shops of the capital, and the daily sale in each at the period referred to. This sale, without counting the households of the King, the Queen, and the royal family, which were specially provisioned, amounted to 26,624 oxen, 162,760 sheep, 27,456 pigs, and 15,912 calves per annum; to which must be added not only the smoked and salted flesh of 200 or 300 pigs, which were sold at the fair in Holy Week, but also 6,420 sheep, 823 oxen, 832 calves, and 624 pigs, which, according to the ”Menagier,” were used in the royal and princely households.

Sometimes the meat was sent to market already cut up, but the slaughter of beasts was more frequently done in the butchers' shops in the town; for they only killed from day to day, according to the demand. Besides the butchers' there were tripe shops, where the feet, kidneys, &c., were sold.