Quotation from: Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period

Written by: Paul Lacroix


The Pont au Change (then covered on each side with houses and shops
occupied by goldsmiths and money-changers) was the place where these
people carried on their trade; and they had the privilege of hanging
their cages against the houses, even without the sanction of the
proprietors. This curious right was granted to them by Charles VI. in
1402, in return for which they were bound to "provide four hundred birds"
whenever a king was crowned, "and an equal number when the queen made her
first entry into her good town of Paris." The goldsmiths and
money-changers, however, finding that this became a nuisance, and that it
injured their trade, tried to get it abolished. They applied to the
authorities to protect their rights, urging that the approaches to their
shops, the rents of which they paid regularly, were continually obstructed
by a crowd of purchasers and dealers in birds. The case was brought
several times before parliament, which only confirmed the orders of the
kings of France and the ancient privileges of the bird-catchers. At the
end of the sixteenth century the quarrel became so bitter that the
goldsmiths and changers took to "throwing down the cages and birds and
trampling them under foot," and even assaulted and openly ill-treated the
poor bird-dealers. But a degree of parliament again justified the sale of
birds on the Pont an Change, by condemning the ring-leader,

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