9. An old writer gives us some idea of the vast quantities of salt exported from France by the amount sent to a single country.
"Important denique sexies mille vel circiter centenarios salis, quorum singuli constant centenis modiis, ducentenas ut minimum & vicenas quinas, vel & tricenas, pro salis ipsius candore puritateque, libras pondo pendentibus, sena igitur libras centenariorum millia, computatis in singulos aureis nummis tricenis, centum & octoginta reserunt aureorum millia."—Belguae Descrtptio, a Lud. Gvicciardino, Amstelodami, 1652, p. 244.
TRANSLATION.—They import in fine 6000 centenarii of salt, each one of which contains 100 bushels, weighing at least 225 or 230 pounds, according to the purity and whiteness of the salt; therefore six thousand centenarii, computing each at thirty golden nummi, amount to 180,000 aurei.
It may not be easy to determine the value of this importation in money, since the value of gold is constantly changing, but the quantity imported may be readily determined, which was according to the above statement, 67,500 tons.
A treaty of April 30, 1527, between Francis I. of France and Henry VIII. of England, provided as follows:—"And, besides, should furnish unto the said Henry, as long as hee lived, yearly, of the Salt of Brouage, the value of fifteene thousand Crownes."—Life and Raigne of Henry VIII., by Lord Herbert of Cherbury, London, 1649, p. 206.
Saintonge continued for a long time to be the source of large exports of salt. De Witt, writing about the year 1658, says they received in Holland of "salt, yearly, the lading of 500 or 600 ships, exported from Rochel, Maran, Brouage, the Island of Oleron, and Ree."—Republick of Holland, by John De Witt, London, 1702, p. 271. But it no longer holds the pre-eminence which it did three centuries ago. Saintonge long since yielded the palm to Brittany.
10. Vide Oeuvres de Champlain, Quebec ed, Tom. III. p. v.
11. In 1558, it was estimated that there were already 400,000 persons in France who were declared adherents of the Reformation.—Ranke's Civil Wars in France, Vol. I., p. 234.
"Although our assemblies were most frequently held in the depth of midnight, and our enemies very often heard us passing through the street, yet so it was, that God bridled them in such manner that we were preserved under His protection."—Bernard Palissy, 1580. Vide Morlay's Life of Palissy, Vol. II., p. 274.
When Henry IV. besieged Paris, its population was more than 200,000.— Malte-Brun.