ten to fifteen per cent.; he had an income of 600
_livres parisis_; he possessed besides his family house in Paris, four
country-houses, well supplied with furniture and agricultural implements,
drinking-cups, vases, cups of silver, and cups of onyx with silver feet,
valued at 100 francs or more each. His wife had jewels, belts, purses, and
trinkets, to the value of upwards of 1,000 gold francs (the gold franc was
worth 24 livres); long and short gowns trimmed with fur; and three mantles
of grey fur. Guillaume de Saint-Yon had generally in his storehouses 300
ox-hides, worth 24 francs each at least; 800 measures of fat, worth 3-1/2
sols each; in his sheds, he had 800 sheep worth 100 sols each; in his
safes 500 or 600 silver florins of ready money (the florin was worth 12
francs, which must be multiplied five times to estimate its value in
present currency), and his household furniture was valued at 12,000
florins. He gave a dowry of 2,000 florins to his two nieces, and spent
3,000 florins in rebuilding his Paris house; and lastly, as if he had been
a noble, he used a silver seal."

[Illustration: Fig. 89.--The Butcher and his Servant, drawn and engraved
by J. Amman (Sixteenth Century).]

We find in the "Menagier de Paris" curious statistics respecting the
various butchers' shops of the capital, and the daily sale in each at the
period referred to. This sale, without counting the households of the
King, the Queen, and the royal family, which were specially provisioned,
amounted to 26,624 oxen, 162,760 sheep, 27,456 pigs, and 15,912 calves
per annum; to which must be added not only the smoked and salted flesh of
200 or 300 pigs, which were sold at the fair in Holy Week, but also 6,420
sheep, 823 oxen, 832 calves, and 624 pigs, which, according to the
"Menagier," were used in the royal and princely households.

Sometimes the meat was sent to market already cut up, but the slaughter of
beasts was more frequently done in the butchers' shops in the town; for
they only killed from day to day, according to the demand. Besides the
butchers' there were tripe shops, where the feet, kidneys, &c., were sold.

[Illustration: Figs. 90 and 91.--Seal and Counter-Seal of the Butchers of
Bruges in 1356, from an impression on green wax, preserved in the archives
of that town.]

According to Bruyerin Champier, during the sixteenth century the most
celebrated sheep in France were those of Berri and Limousin; and of all
butchers' meat, v