This had much to do with the isolation of various parts of France. In the sixteenth century nobody traveled who could help it. To journey from Paris to Toulouse, now a matter of a few hours by railway, was then a work of time and danger. Large forests were numerous--of twenty miles and more in circuit: there was one near Blois of not less than ninety miles. Here the brown bear, the wild boar, and the deer still roamed at liberty. In the forest of Landeac, the Viscount Rohan preserved a drove of six hundred wild horses. Wolves would occasionally issue from the forests, and ravage the country in packs, as they still do in Poland and Russia.[161] In 1548 one of these packs issued from the forest of Orleans, devouring men, women, and children, until the peasantry rose _en masse_ to exterminate them.[162] But worse than these hungry animals were the brigands who found shelter “in the merry greenwood,” preying upon their neighbors, and especially upon travelers. One band of ruffians, five hundred in number, roamed the country, storming towns and castles, burning villages and farmsteads, pillaging, murdering, and committing fouler atrocities. Travelers rarely journeyed alone: they formed into a sort of caravan, sometimes escorted by soldiers, hardly less to be feared than the robbers themselves. If the adventurous merchant passed safely through forest and over heath, he arrived at an inn to find himself carefully classed. If he journeyed on foot, he could not dine and lodge like one who went on horseback. The dinner of the first was fixed by tariff at six sols, and the bed at eight; the latter paid respectively twelve and twenty. In many cases the traveler had to carry his bed and food with him, or he would have to go without. The rivers, now so full of busy life, were rarely disturbed by oar or sail; and up to the reign of Charles IX. the merchants trading along the Loire were forced to combine into a hanse or league in order to protect their property from plunder and excessive toll. They entered into treaties with the riverain Rob Roys, paying an annual black-mail which saved them from still greater exactions.[163] It was rare to find a bridge without fort and bar which none could pass, by land or water, without payment of pontage.