Montesquieu was almost always in error with the learned, because he was not learned; but he was always right against the fanatics and promoters of slavery. Europe owes him eternal gratitude.
LENT.
SECTION I.
Our questions on Lent will merely regard the police. It appeared useful to have a time in the year in which we should eat fewer oxen, calves, lambs, and poultry. Young fowls and pigeons are not ready in February and March, the time in which Lent falls; and it is good to cease the carnage for some weeks in countries in which pastures are not so fertile as those of England and Holland.
The magistrates of police have very wisely ordered that meat should be a little dearer at Paris during this time, and that the profit should be given to the hospitals. It is an almost insensible tribute paid by luxury and gluttony to indigence; for it is the rich who are not able to keep Lent—the poor fast all the year.
There are very few farming men who eat meat once a month. If they ate of it every day, there would not be enough for the most flourishing kingdom. Twenty millions of pounds of meat a day would make seven thousand three hundred millions of pounds a year. This calculation is alarming.
The small number of the rich, financiers, prelates, principal magistrates, great lords, and great ladies who condescend to have maigre served at their tables, fast during six weeks on soles, salmon, turbots, sturgeons, etc.
One of our most famous financiers had couriers, who for a hundred crowns brought him fresh sea fish every day to Paris. This expense supported the couriers, the dealers who sold the horses, the fishermen who furnished the fish, the makers of nets, constructors of boats, and the druggists from whom were procured the refined spices which give to a fish a taste superior to that of meat. Lucullus could not have kept Lent more voluptuously.
It should further be remarked that fresh sea fish, in coming to Paris, pays a considerable tax. The secretaries of the rich, their valets de chambre, ladies' maids, and stewards, partake of the dessert of Crœsus, and fast as deliciously as he.