[Illustration: Fig. 84.--Swineherd.
Illustration: Fig 85.--A Burgess at Meals.
Miniatures from the Calendar of a Book of Hours.--Manuscript 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 passing, 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.
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