The use of the _tranchoir_, which Froissart calls a _tailloir_, is not unfrequently alluded to in the older French writers. That writer tells the story of a prince who, having received poison in a powder, and suspecting it, put it on a _tailloir_ of bread, and thus gave it to a dog to eat. One of the French poets of the fifteenth century, Martial de Paris, speaking against the extravagant tables kept by the bishops at that time, exclaims, “Alas! what have the poor? They have only the tranchoirs of bread which remain on the table.” An ordinance of the dauphin Humbert II., of the date of 1336, orders that there should be served to him at table every day “loaves of white bread for the mouth, and four small loaves to serve for tranchoirs” (_pro incisorio faciendo_). For great people, a silver platter was often put under the tranchoir, and it was probable from the extension of that practice that the tranchoirs became ultimately abandoned, and the platters took their place. [Illustration: No. _110. A Dinner Scene._] [Illustration: _No. 111. A King at Dinner._] We give three examples of dinner-scenes, from manuscripts of the fourteenth century. The first, cut No. 110 (on the last page), is taken from a manuscript belonging to the National Library in Paris, No. 7210, containing the “Pélerinage de la Vie Humaine.” The party are eating fish, or rather have been eating them, for the bones and remnants are strewed over the table. We have, in addition to these, the bread, knives, salt-cellars, and cups; and on the ground a remarkable collection of jugs for holding the liquors. Our second example, cut No. 111, is taken from an illuminated manuscript of the romance of Meliadus, preserved in the British Museum (Additional MS., No. 12,228). We have here the curtain or tapestry hung behind the single table. The man to the left is probably the steward, or the superior of the hall; next to him is the cup-bearer serving the liquor; further to the right we have the carver cutting the meat; and last of all the cook bringing in another dish. The table is laid much in the same manner in our third example, cut No. 112. We have again the cups and the bread, the latter in round cakes; in our second example they are marked with crosses, as in the Anglo-Saxon illuminations; but there are no forks, or even spoons, which, of course, were used for pottage and soups, and were perhaps brought on and taken off with them. All the guests seem to be ready to use their fingers. [Illustration: _No. 112. A Royal Feast._]