38 The Soverane Herbe 



found themselves the object of many unwelcome 

 attentions from the juvenile population. Then they 

 fell under Government censure ; they were summoned 

 before the Council and heavily fined, innkeepers being 

 ordered in future to inform the authorities of all per- 

 sons who smoked in their houses. In 1661 the Com- 

 munal Fathers of Berne legislated against tobacco. 

 The canton regulations were based upon the Ten 

 Commandments, to each being added in explanation 

 the crimes which it was held to comprehend. Under 

 the seventh, ' Thou shalt not commit adultery,' was 

 comprehended the sin of smoking. This prohibition 

 was renewed in 1675, and to punish breaches of the 

 law a Chambre du Tabac was instituted ; this tri- 

 bunal existed until the middle of the eighteenth 

 century. 



In 1694 Innocent XII. was obliged to repeat the 

 Bull of his predecessor seventy years before. He 

 solemnly excommunicated all who took ' snuff or 

 tobacco in church,' from which it is seen that the 

 previous edict had had little effect. In Holland, 

 Spain and Germany alone was tobacco allowed to 

 pursue its peaceful conquest, unopposed by the 

 stupidity and might of the law. In England, James 

 had not dared to prohibit its use, but what he could 

 he did by heavy duties, monopoly and restrictions. 

 Threatened on every side by paganism, Mohammedan- 

 ism and Christianity, by temporal monarchs and 

 ecclesiastical potentates, tobacco found itself in the 

 first century of its introduction into the Old World. 

 If force, invective and sarcasm could have destroyed 

 the herb, it would have perished long ago. 



