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1815.] M. Parmentier. 169 
establish a School of Baking, from which the pupils would speedily 
carry into the provinces all the good practices. He went himself to 
Britanny and Languedoc, with M. Cadet-Devaux, in order to pro- 
pagate his doctrine. 
He caused the greatest part of the bran which was mixed with 
the bread of the soldiers to be withdrawn; and by procuring them 
a more healthy and agreeable article of food, he put an end to a 
multitude of abuses of which this mixture was the source. 
Skilful men have calculated that the progress of knowledge in 
our days relative to grinding and baking has been such, that ab- 
stracting from the other vegetables which may be substituted for 
corp, the quantity of corn necessary for the food of an individual 
may be reduced more than a third. As it is chiefly to Parmentier 
that the almost general adoption of these new processes is owing, 
this calculation establishes his services better than a thousand pane- 
gyrics. 
Filled with a kind of enthusiasm for arts which he appreciated 
according to their utility, Parmentier would have wished to have 
regulated by that basis alone the consideration and circumstances of 
those who exercised them. He laments particularly the condition 
of the baker, whose labours are so severe, whose industry is sub- 
jected to regulations often vexatious, and who never fails to become 
one of the first objects of the fury of the people on the least appear- 
ance of scarcity. His good heart made him forget tiat this is precisely 
one of the conditions of the existence of a great society, that the 
trades necessary for life should be brought to such a degree of sim- 
plicity, that no long time nor much money is necessary to learn 
them, and that of course those who practise them cannot demand 
great salaries. No nation could exist if the labourer pretended to 
require the same treatment as the physician, or the baker as the 
astronomer. Hesides, it does not appear that the proportion of 
recompence is so much to the disadvantage of the mechanics; for 
we see many more of them make fortunes than of philosophers or 
artists. 
Ardent as Parmentier was for the public utility, it was to be 
expected that he would interest himself much in the efforts occa- 
sioned by the last war to supply exotic luxuries. It was he that 
brought the syrup of grapes to the greatest perfection. This prepa- 
ration, which may be ridiculed by those who wish to assimilate it to 
sugar, has notwithstanding reduced the consumption of sugar many 
thousand quintals, and has produced immense savings in our hos- 
pitals, of which the poor have reaped the advantage, has given a new 
value to our vines at a time when the war and the taxes made them 
be pulled up in many places, and will not remain less useful for 
many purposes, even if sugar should ever again fall in this countr® 
to its old price. 
These labours, purely agricultural or economical, did not induce 
Parmensier to neglect those more immediately connected with his 
