The small proprietors, too, keep rabbits and pigeons, many of which find their way not only to the Paris markets but to England. A century ago, until the time of the Revolution, the landholding aristocracy had alone the right of shooting rabbits and keeping pigeons. “The birds,” says M. Nottelle, writing on this subject, “ate the seed of the poor peasants in the neighbourhood and the rabbits ate the corn when it was green. These exclusive privileges were abolished on the celebrated night of the 4th of August, 1789.” Yet it should always be remembered that the noble proprietors gave up their exclusive privileges--doubtless under the influence of the Revolution, but, nevertheless, as a matter of fact--of their own accord. Now everyone can keep pigeons; but the owners are ordered by the mayor to keep them in the pigeon-house during seed-time. If they are allowed to fly at this period they are considered as game, and may be shot. The owner, moreover, is fined. Occasionally in the French market frogs are to be seen, and it is quite possible that in the days before the Revolution the epithet “frog-eating” could be more fitly applied to the generality of Frenchmen than it can now, when the thighs of frogs are only to be met with at certain restaurants, where they are served, equally with snails, as a rare delicacy. It has been seen that before 1789 the French peasants were poor and miserable. Arthur Young’s descriptions of them have been quoted often enough. A century earlier than Arthur Young, La Bruyère, author of “Les Caractères,” spoke of them as looking like ferocious animals. “The men and women,” he continued, “are meagre, dark-looking objects, their dirty rags scarcely covering them, and retiring at night into filthy dens or hovels.” It is possible, then, as M. Nottelle, in his unpretentious but interesting and instructive little book on the French peasantry since the Revolution, declares, that several millions of peasants were obliged to live on roots. “No doubt,” he adds, “they ate frogs, though it took much time to get a decent dish of them. But time was not a great object to these poor famished slaves. From this, most likely, Shakespeare called the French ‘frog-eaters,’ and foreigners have come to the conclusion that many of the French feed mostly on frogs. It is not easy, however, to exist on frogs, which are too dear to be eaten by the generality of people.” [Illustration: RUE DE TOURNON, WITH THE FAÇADE OF THE SENATE HOUSE.]