Millers and bakers, even in France, practised sometimes this method of grinding so early as the sixteenth century; but it was some time forbidden by the police as hurtful. In the year 1546, those were threatened with punishment who should grind their corn twice[447]; and in 1658 this threat was renewed, and the cause added, that such a practice was prejudicial to the health[448]. Such prohibitions however, made by the police without sufficient grounds, could not prevent intelligent persons from remarking that the bran still contained meal, which, when separated from it, would be as proper for food as the first. Those who had observed this were induced, by the probability of advantage, to try to separate the remaining meal from the bran; and the attempt was attended with success, but it was necessary to keep it concealed. Malouin relates, that above a hundred years before, a miller at Senlis employed this method, and that the same practice was generally, though privately, introduced at all the mills in the neighbourhood. There were people who made a trade of purchasing bran in order to separate it from the meal, which they sold; and it is probable that many of them carried the art too far, and even ground bran along with the meal. This was done chiefly during times of scarcity, as in the year 1709. As men at that time were attentive to every advantage, this art was more known and more used, so that at length it became common. The clergy of the royal chapel and parish church at Versailles sent their wheat to be ground at an adjacent mill; it was, according to custom, put through the mill only once, and the bran, which still contained a considerable quantity of meal, was sold for fattening cattle. In time, the miller, having learned the _mouture économique_, purchased the bran from these ecclesiastics, and found that it yielded him as good flour as they procured from the whole wheat. The miller at length discovered to them the secret, and gave them afterwards fourteen bushels of flour from their wheat, instead of eight which he had given them before. This voluntary discovery of the miller was made in 1760, and it is probable that the art was disclosed by more at the same time. A baker named Malisset proposed to the lieutenant-général de police to teach a method, by which people could grind their corn with more advantage; and experiments were set on foot and published, which proved the possibility of it. A mealman of Senlis, named Buquet, who had the inspection of the mill belonging to the large hospital at Paris, made the same proposal; the result of his experiments, conducted under the direction of magistrates, was printed; the investigation of this art was now taken up by men of learning, who gave it a suitable name; and they explained it, made calculations on it, and recommended it so much, that the _mouture économique_ engaged the attention of all the magistrates throughout France[449]. Government sent Buquet to