As far as we can ascertain, the Gauls had a dislike to the flesh of rabbits, and they did not even hunt them, for according to Strabo, Southern Gaul was infested with these mischievous animals, which destroyed the growing crops, and even the barks of the trees.  There was considerable change in this respect a few centuries later, for every one in town or country reared domesticated rabbits, and the wild ones formed an article of food which was much in request.  In order to ascertain whether a rabbit is young, Strabo tells us we should feel the first joint of the fore-leg, when we shall find a small bone free and movable.  This method is adopted in all kitchens in the present day.  Hares were preferred to rabbits, provided they were young; for an old French proverb says, “An old hare and an old goose are food for the devil.”

[Illustration:  Fig. 96.—­“The way to skin and cut up a Stag.”—­Fac-simile of a Miniature of “Phoebus, and his Staff for hunting Wild Animals” (Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century, National Library of Paris).]

The hedgehog and squirrel were also eaten.  As for roe and red deer, they were, according to Dr. Bruyerin Ohampier, morsels fit for kings and rich people (Fig. 96).  The doctor speaks of “fried slices of the young horn of the stag” as the daintiest of food, and the “Menagier de Paris” shows how, as early as the fourteenth century, beef was dished up like bear’s-flesh venison, for the use of kitchens in countries where the black bear did not exist.  This proves that bear’s flesh was in those days considered good food.

Milk, Butter, Eggs, and Cheese.—­These articles of food, the first which nature gave to man, were not always and everywhere uniformly permitted or prohibited by the Church on fast days.  The faithful were for several centuries left to their own judgment on the subject.  In fact, there is nothing extraordinary in eggs being eaten in Lent without scruple, considering that some theologians maintained that the hens which laid them were animals of aquatic extraction.

It appears, however, that butter, either from prejudice or mere custom, was only used on fast days in its fresh state, and was not allowed to be used for cooking purposes.  At first, and especially amongst the monks, the dishes were prepared with oil; but as in some countries oil was apt to become very expensive, and the supply even to fail totally, animal fat or lard had to be substituted.  At a subsequent period the Church authorised the use of butter and milk; but on this point, the discipline varied much.  In the fourteenth century, Charles V., King of France, having asked Pope Gregory XI. for a dispensation to use milk and butter on fast days, in consequence of the bad state of his health, brought on owing to an attempt having been made to poison him, the supreme Pontiff required a certificate from a physician and from the King’s confessor.  He even then only granted the dispensation after imposing on that Christian king the repetition of a certain number of prayers and the performance of certain pious deeds.  In defiance of the severity of ecclesiastical authority, we find, in the “Journal of a Bourgeois of Paris,” that in the unhappy reign of Charles VI. (1420), “for want of oil, butter was eaten in Lent the same as on ordinary non-fast days.”