The Pont au Change (then covered on each side with houses and shops occupied by goldsmiths and money-changers) was the place where these people carried on their trade; and they had the privilege of hanging their cages against the houses, even without the sanction of the proprietors. This curious right was granted to them by Charles VI. in 1402, in return for which they were bound to "provide four hundred birds" whenever a king was crowned, "and an equal number when the queen made her first entry into her good town of Paris." The goldsmiths and money-changers, however, finding that this became a nuisance, and that it injured their trade, tried to get it abolished. They applied to the authorities to protect their rights, urging that the approaches to their shops, the rents of which they paid regularly, were continually obstructed by a crowd of purchasers and dealers in birds. The case was brought several times before parliament, which only confirmed the orders of the kings of France and the ancient privileges of the bird-catchers. At the end of the sixteenth century the quarrel became so bitter that the goldsmiths and changers took to "throwing down the cages and birds and trampling them under foot," and even assaulted and openly ill-treated the poor bird-dealers. But a degree of parliament again justified the sale of birds on the Pont an Change, by condemning the ring-leader, [Illustration: Fig. 163.--Pheasant Fowling.--"Showing how to catch Pheasants."--Fac-simile of a Miniature in the Manuscript of the "Livre du Roy Modus" (Fourteenth Century).] Pierre Filacier, the master goldsmith who had commenced the proceedings against the bird-catchers, to pay a double fine, namely, twenty crowns to the plaintiffs and ten to the King. [Illustration: Fig. 164.--The Mode of catching a Woodcock.--Fac-simile of a Miniature in the Manuscript of the "Livre du Roy Modus" (Fourteenth Century).]