‘The farmer’s duty is to choose his corn, have it ground, and to keep the flour in the granary, whence he will soon take it in order to make bread. The handling of the flour and kneading the dough is entirely the care of the wife, who ought to give all her best energies to it, for of all food bread is the best; one gets tired of the most delicate meats, but never of bread.’ From this time till the present there is no great story to tell of bread in France. It has progressed in quality, as in every other country, until French bread is famous throughout the civilised world. But this is mainly in the towns; black bread is still in use in some of the rural parts of France, and one can imagine the relish with which the peasant tastes once more the bread of his youth after having been deprived of it for some time. In Paris, at one time, the monks controlled the bakery business; they had the monopoly of the public ovens, where housewives brought the dough to be baked, just as nowadays they take a shoulder of mutton and potatoes. But no baking was allowed on Sundays and fête days. France thus observed Sunday as a whole holiday, and the oven-tax went towards the support and burial of the poor. Up to 1789 the bakers were compelled to sell nearly all their bread at stalls in the public markets, and 900 master bakers monopolised the privilege; for it was only in 1863 that the trade became free and thrown open to all. Previous to that, in order to qualify for a master baker, it was necessary to graduate five years as an apprentice, and four more as a journeyman; also the sale of fancy bread was obliged to be carried on in an underhand way, and it was delivered in secret, being subject to a tax, and the baker not being able to make it of exact weight, without prejudice, on account of its great extent of crust.