After this artistic sketch, the author dilates on the goodman Anselme.  He says:  “This good man possessed a moderate amount of knowledge, was a goodish grammarian, a musician, somewhat of a sophist, and rather given to picking holes in others.”  Some of Anselme’s conversation is also given, and after beginning by describing in glowing terms the bygone days which he and his contemporaries had seen, and which he stated to be very different to the present, he goes on to say, “I must own, my good old friends, that I look back with pleasure on our young days; at all events the mode of doing things in those days was very superior and better in every way to that of the present....  O happy days!  O fortunate times when our fathers and grandfathers, whom may God absolve, were still among us!” As he said this, he would raise the rim of his hat.  He contented himself as to dress with a good coat of thick wool, well lined according to the fashion; and for feast days and other important occasions, one of thick cloth, lined with some old gabardine.

[Illustration:  Fig. 70.—­The Shepherds celebrating the Birth of the Messiah by Songs and Dances.—­Fifteenth Century.—­Fac-simile of an Engraving on Wood, from a Book of Hours, printed by Anthony Verard.]

“So we see,” says M. Le Roux de Lincy, “at the end of the fifteenth century that the old peasants complained of the changes in the village customs, and of the luxury which every one wished to display in his furniture or apparel.  On this point it seems that there has been little or no change.  We read that, from the time of Homer down to that of the excellent author of ‘Rustic Discourses,’ and even later, the old people found fault with the manners of the present generation and extolled those of their forefathers, which they themselves had criticized in their own youth.”

[Illustration:  Fig. 71.—­Purse or Leather Bag, with Knife or Dagger of the Fifteenth Century.]

Food and Cookery.

  History of Bread.—­Vegetables and Plants used in
  Cooking.—­Fruits.—­Butchers’ Meat.—­Poultry, Game.—­Milk, Butter,
  Cheese, and Eggs.—­Fish and Shellfish.—­Beverages, Beer, Cider, Wine,
  Sweet Wine, Refreshing Drinks, Brandy.—­Cookery.—­Soups, Boiled Food,
  Pies, Stews, Salads, Roasts, Grills.—­Seasoning, Truffles, Sugar,
  Verjuice.—­Sweets, Desserts, Pastry.—­Meals and Feasts.—­Rules of
  Serving at Table from the Fifteenth to the Sixteenth Centuries.

“The private life of a people,” says Legrand d’Aussy, who had studied that of the French from a gastronomic point of view only, “from the foundation of monarchy down to the eighteenth century, must, like that of mankind generally, commence with obtaining the first and most pressing of its requirements.  Not satisfied with providing food for his support, man has endeavoured to add to his food something which pleased his taste.  He does not wait to be hungry, but he anticipates that feeling, and aggravates it by condiments and seasonings.  In a word his greediness has created on this score a very complicated and wide-spread science, which, amongst nations which are considered civilised, has become most important, and is designated the culinary art.”