these were called sante, because the doctors recommended them to invalids or those in consumption; on the other hand, freshwater crayfish were not much esteemed in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, excepting for their eggs, which were prepared with spice.  It is well known that pond frogs were a favourite food of the Gauls and Franks; they were never out of fashion in the rural districts, and were served at the best tables, dressed with green sauce; at the same period, and especially during Lent, snails, which were served in pyramid-shaped dishes, were much appreciated; so much so that nobles and bourgeois cultivated snail beds, somewhat resembling our oyster beds of the present day.

The inhabitants of the coast at all periods ate various kinds of shell-fish, which were called in Italy sea-fruit; but it was only towards the twelfth century that the idea was entertained of bringing oysters to Paris, and mussels were not known there until much later.  It is notorious that Henry IV. was a great oyster-eater.  Sully relates that when he was created a duke “the king came, without being expected, to take his seat at the reception banquet, but as there was much delay in going to dinner, he began by eating some huitres de chasse, which he found very fresh.”

By huitres de chasse were meant those oysters which were brought by the chasse-marees, carriers who brought the fresh fish from the coast to Paris at great speed.

Beverages.—­Beer is not only one of the oldest fermenting beverages used by man, but it is also the one which was most in vogue in the Middle Ages.  If we refer to the tales of the Greek historians, we find that the Gauls—­who, like the Egyptians, attributed the discovery of this refreshing drink to their god Osiris—­had two sorts of beer:  one called zythus, made with honey and intended for the rich; the other called corma, in which there was no honey, and which was made for the poor.  But Pliny asserts that beer in Gallie was called cerevisia, and the grain employed for making it brasce.  This testimony seems true, as from brasce or brasse comes the name brasseur (brewer), and from cerevisia, cervoise, the generic name by which beer was known for centuries, and which only lately fell into disuse.

[Illustration:  Fig. 104.—­The Great Drinkers of the North.—­Fac-simile of a Woodcut of the “Histoires des Pays Septentrionaux,” by Olaus Magnus, 16mo., Antwerp, 1560.]

After a great famine, Domitian ordered all the vines in Gaul to be uprooted so as to make room for corn.  This rigorous measure must have caused beer to become even more general, and, although two centuries later Probus allowed vines to be replanted, the use of beverages made from grain became an established custom; but in time, whilst the people still only drank cervoise, those who were able to afford it bought wine and drank it alternately with beer.