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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



ever road they took. The kingdom was 

 so full of the Navarrois [adherents of 

 the King of Navarre] that they were 

 masters of all the flat countries, the riv- 

 ers, principal towns, and cities. This 

 caused such a scarcity of provisions in 

 France that a small cask of herrings sold 

 for 30 golden crowns. Many of the poor 

 died of famine. The lower classes suf- 

 fered particularly for salt, which was 

 highly taxed in order to secure the money 

 with which to pay the army." 



Of course, much of the suffering of 

 this period in France was due to the fact 

 that the whole country, like England, had 

 had its vitality sapped by the ravages of 

 the Black Death a few years previously. 



"In 1437 a great famine swept over 

 France and many other Christian coun- 

 tries," records Enguerrand de Monstrelet. 

 "It was a pitiful sight to witness multi- 

 tudes in the large towns dying in heaps 

 on dunghills. Some towns drove the poor 

 out of their gates, while others received 

 all unfortunates and administered to them 

 as long as they were able. Foremost in 

 this act of mercy was Cambray." 



This dearth lasted for two years, and 

 it resulted in many strict regulations gov- 

 erning the sale and distribution of corn. 

 Embargoes against the shipment of grain 

 out of the communities in which it was 

 raised were not unusual. The city of 

 Ghent was especially active in dealing 

 with the situation. An order was issued 

 prohibiting the brewing of beer and all 

 other liquors in which grain was used, 

 and another conservation measure was 

 the killing of all dogs belonging to the 

 poorer people, in order that these classes 

 might have the food that otherwise 

 would have gone to the pets. 



SUFFERING DUE TO EXTRAVAGANCE OF THE 

 FRENCH COURT 



The closing years of the reign of Louis 

 XIY were marked by general suffering 

 among the laboring classes throughout 

 France, not so much on account of the 

 failure of crops, but because of the op- 

 pressive burden of taxation necessitated 

 by the extravagance and wastefulness of 

 the French court. In some districts as 

 much as three-sevenths of the peasant's 

 daily wage was seized by the tax-gath- 



erer. In the Duchy of Burgundy three- 

 fourths of the people lived on barley and 

 oaten bread. Emigration and death re- 

 duced the population until every seventh 

 house was empty, and unusually small 

 families held out little promise for the 

 future rejuvenation of the country. The 

 streets of towns and cities were thronged 

 with beggars clad in indecent rags. 



One of the greatest privations to which 

 the peasants were subjected was the loss 

 of their cattle, all of which were eaten. 

 When a severe winter came, the wretched 

 creatures were deprived of the warmth 

 which they were accustomed to derive 

 from sleeping side by side with the 

 beasts. 



Madame de Maintenon was accused, 

 perhaps unjustly, of making a fortune 

 out of France's miseries by trafficking in 

 corn. She was mobbed in her carriage 

 by the hungry crowd as she rode out of 

 Versailles, where the living skeletons of 

 men and women clamored daily for 

 bread and could with difficulty be kept 

 from the presence of the king. For a 

 hundred years thereafter caricaturists 

 depicted Frenchmen as tall, gaunt, lan- 

 tern-jawed creatures, in contrast to the 

 well-fed figure of the English John Bull. 



The French Government officials made 

 many sporadic efforts to better condi- 

 tions, but their methods of dealing with 

 the situation seemed only to magnify the 

 distress. For example, they doubled the 

 tolls on roads, and thereby put an end to 

 what little commerce remained ; ridicu- 

 lous tariffs on foodstuffs aggravated the 

 populace and many riots followed. Gar- 

 risons revolted and had to be given large 

 bounties to return to their duties. 



One of the most terrible periods of 

 starvation which any city has undergone 

 in modern times befell Paris during its 

 siege in the Franco-Prussian War of 

 1870-1871. Thousands of refugees had 

 flocked to the capital from the surround- 

 ing districts as the Germans advanced, 

 vet there was not sufficient food within 

 the fortifications to feed the normal pop- 

 ulation of the city. No provision _ had 

 been made for the possibility of military 

 disaster: the French Empire's only ex- 

 pectation had been an immediate triumph 

 of its armies in the field. The severity 



