ever, a few other sea-fish, which were also
used for food, but which have since been abandoned. Our ancestors were,
not difficult to please: they had good teeth, and their palates, having
become accustomed to the flesh of the cormorant, heron, and crane, without
difficulty appreciated the delicacy of the nauseous sea-dog, the porpoise,
and even the whale, which, when salted, furnished to a great extent all
the markets of Europe.

The trade in salted sea-fish only began in Paris in the twelfth century,
when a company of merchants was instituted, or rather re-established, on
the principle of the ancient association of Nantes. This association had
existed from the period of the foundation under the Gauls of Lutetia, the
city of fluvial commerce (Fig. 103), and it is mentioned in the letters
patent of Louis VII. (1170). One of the first cargoes which this company
brought in its boats was that of salted herrings from the coast of
Normandy. These herrings became a necessary food during Lent, and

"Sor et blanc harene fres pouldre (couvert de sel)!"

("Herrings smoked, fresh, and salted!")

was the cry of the retailers in the streets of Paris, where this fish
became a permanent article of consumption to an extent which can be
appreciated from the fact that Saint Louis gave annually nearly seventy
thousand herrings to the hospitals, plague-houses, and monasteries.

[Illustration: Fig. 103.--A Votive Altar of the Nantes Parisiens, or the
Company for the Commercial Navigation of the Seine, erected in Lutelia
during the reign of Tiberius.--Fragments of this Altar, which were
discovered in 1711 under the Choir of the Church of Notre-Dame, are
preserved in the Museums of Cluny and the Palais des Thermes.]

The profit derived from the sale of herrings at that time was so great
that it soon became a special trade; it was, in fact, the regular practice
of the Middle Ages for persons engaged in any branch of industry to unite
together and form themselves into a corporation. Other speculators
conceived the idea of bringing fresh fish to Paris by means of relays of
posting conveyances placed along the road, and they called themselves
_forains_. Laws were made to distinguish the rights of each of these
trades, and to prevent any quarrel in the competition. In these laws, all
sea-fish were comprised under three names, the fresh, the salted, and the
smoked (_sor_). Louis IX. in an edict divides the dealers into two
classes, namely,