Note 252-1 — Chapter II

It is said that the plague which, in 1709 and 1710, decimated Prussia and Lithuanian,[TN 102] carried away one-third of the inhabitants, and even one-half of those at Dantzig. While previously the number of marriages annually was, on an average, 6,082, it rose in 1711 to 12,028. In 1712 it was 6,267, and sank some years afterwards on account of the decrease in population, to 5,000. (Süssmilch, Göttl. Ordnung, I, Tab. 21.) Similar effects of the plague at Marseilles, 1720. (Messance, Recherches sur la Population, 766.) In Russia, too, it was observed after the devastation produced by the black death in 1347 and the succeeding years, that the population again increased at an extraordinarily rapid rate; and that an unusual number of twins and triplets were born (?). (Karamsin, Russ. Gesch., IV, 230.) Compare Dalin Schwed. Gesch., 11,384; Montfaucon, Monuments de la Monarchie Française, I, 282.