SIEGE" OF PARIS

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 31 July 1926, Page 11

SIEGE" OF PARIS

rpHE siege of Paris 'by the German army under the famous von Moltke, which began on September 17, 1870, after the French disaster at Sedan, and continued until the capitulation of the city at the end of January, 1871, compelled the Parisians to eat dogs, oats, rats, mice, and most oi the animals at the 7.00, which was at the Jardin des Plantes. The following entries from the diary of Victor Hugo, who was one of the 1,800,000 Parisians to go through the siege, give an indication of the straits to which the people ■were reduced." October 10. —We are eating horse with all its variations. I have seen in the front of‘a pork butcher’s shop the following notice: —“Snucissou clievaleresque. ’ ’ October 22. —For the Inst two days Paris has been reduced to salt meat. A rat costs fourpenee. November 23.—Pies are made out of rats. An onion costs a halfpenny, and a potato a halfpenny. November 27. —We have bought an antelope’s leg from the Jardin ties Plantes. November 28. —We ate a bear for dinner. , December 1. —Yesterday we ate venison, bear the day before, and antelope the two previous days. These are presents from the Jardin des Plantes. December 3.—After to-day we shall have only brown bread in Paris. December 15.—Yesterday I ate rat. December 30.—W0 are now eating nothing but pork or perhaps dog, or perhaps rat; we are eating we don’t know what. December 31.—1 am sharing the sufferings of the people. It is true that I can’t digest horse, but I eat it nil the same, and am given slices of it. We were eating brown bread, but now we are on black bread. It is the same for all of us, and this is right. It is interesting to note that although the flesh of decrepit worn-out horses now forms the chief meat of the French poor industrial centres, there was a strong prejudice against horse flesh before the siege. Horse butchers were first licensed by the French Government. During the siege 50,000 horses were slaughtered for food, and the supply of holse flesh was so inade-

AT FOURPENCE A HEAD WHAT THE POPULACE ATE.

quote that towards tlie end of the siege the rationed allowance was less than 2 07,. per head per day. Bread, which was a mixture of wheat, rye, rice, oats, bran and chopped straw mixed with starch, was rationed at less than 8 oz. per head. , . _ . An English doctor who lived m Paris during the siege, and subsequently published his experiences, gave the following prices of foodstuffs, but added that many ot' these things were not procurable" even by those who had the money to pay for them: —Turkey, each £4; goose, each £.'! ss; I owl, each £1 10s; rabbit, each £1 10s; pigeon, _ each £1; dog, each 15s; cat, each 15s; bear s flesh, per lb, 10s; venison, ISs; wolf’s flesh, per lb (is; ham, per lb 8s; bacon, per lb ss; eggs, each 4s; rat, each 2s •id; sparrow, each 2s (id; cabbage, each 12s; potatoes, per bushel £1 10s; onions, per bushel £:!. On the respective merits of dogs and cats as human food, this English doctor quotes an ex-oftieer in the Foreign Legion who gave him an appetising lunch which included field mice and rats. “The moment horse flesh fails,’’ said this cx-oliicer, who had lost his right foot lighting in Constantine in Algeria, “the Parisians will fall back on dogs, turning up their noses at cats and rats, though both are a thousand times superior to dogs. In saving this lam virtually libelling the cat and the rat, for ‘the friend of man,’ bo he cooked in over so grand a way, is always a detestable dish. His flesh is oily and ilabbv; stew him, fry him, do what you will, there is always a flavour of castor oil about him. The only way to minimise that flavour, to make him palatable, is to .salt, or rather to pepper him; that is, to cut him up in slices, and leave them for a fortnight, bestrewing them very liberally with peppercorns. Then before ' ‘ accommodating’ them finally, put them into boiling water for a while, and throw the water away. No such compromises are necessary with ‘the fauna of the tiles,’ who, with liis larger-sized victim, the rat, has been the most misprized and misjudged of all animals, from the culinary point of view. Stewed puss is far more delicious than stewed rabbit. The flesh of the former tastes less pungent than that of the latter, and is more tender.”