They crowded greedily around stalls in the public squares where the skin, bones, and offal of such dogs, cats and unclean beasts as still remained for the consumption of the wealthier classes were sold to the populace.

Over the doorways of these flesh markets might be read "Haec runt munera pro iis qui vitam pro Philippo profuderunt." Men stood in archways and narrow passages lying in wait for whatever stray dogs still remained at large, noosed them, strangled them, and like savage beasts of prey tore them to pieces and devoured them alive.

And it sometimes happened, too, that the equally hungry dog proved the more successful in the foul encounter, and fed upon the man.

A lady visiting the Duchess of Nemours--called for the high pretensions of her sons by her two marriages the queen-mother--complained bitterly that mothers in Paris had been compelled to kill their own children outright to save them from starving to death in lingering agony.

"And if you are brought to that extremity," replied the duchess, "as for the sake of our holy religion to be forced to kill your own children, do you think that so great a matter after all?
What are your children made of more than other people's children?
What are we all but dirt and dust ?" Such was the consolation administered by the mother of the man who governed Paris, and defended its gates against its lawful sovereign at the command of a foreigner; while the priests in their turn persuaded the populace that it was far more righteous to kill their own children, if they had no food to give them, than to obtain food by recognising a heretic king.
It was related too, and believed, that in some instances mothers had salted the bodies of their dead children and fed upon them, day by day, until the hideous repast would no longer support their own life.