Note 167 — Chapter IV · FRANCE AT THE ACCESSION OF CHARLES IX. [1560.]

From a list of delicacies supplied in December, 1578, to the wife of Charles de Vienne, Governor of Burgundy, when in childbed, we learn that a Mayence ham cost 50 sols, Italian sausages 15 sols a lb., olives 12 sols, an ounce of musk 18 crowns of the sun, fine white sugar 23 sols a lb., inferior sort 22 sols, dried currants 12 sols, and preserved pears 3 sols. At Mende, in 1568, a quintal of hay at 20 sols, and of straw at 8 sols, were reckoned very dear; the horse-soldier’s pay being arranged on the supposition that he could get those quantities of hay and straw for 8 and 4 sols, and a setier of oats for 25. (L’Abbé Bosse: Le Gevaudan pendant la dernière Guerre civile. Mende, 1864.) At Toulouse a soldier’s food cost 4 sols a day, probably equivalent to rather more than 20 sols or a franc now. About this time the salary of a president in the Toulouse Parliament was 100 sols a day, and of his huissier or beadle 30 sols.