[Illustration: 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 proprietorship 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.
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