The agricultural population had been almost untouched by that spirit of progress which had been felt in the great cities and towns, and had led the way to the revival of religion. Their condition was hardly better than in the days of Louis XII., when the farmer was at times compelled to plough his land by night, lest the tax-gatherers, who swarmed like locusts, should come and seize his cattle. The peasants in their remonstrance added piteously: “And when they are taken, we yoke ourselves to the plough.” Their houses were like the cabins still to be met with in the south and west of Ireland, and in the remoter parts of Scotland. In Brittany the traveler may still see many such dwellings--clay or mud-built, covered with turf or rushes from the neighboring pool. The beaten earth was the floor, a man could rarely stand upright beneath its low roof. In that single room, often windowless, the whole family huddled together. They were without the commonest comforts now rarely absent from the laborer’s cottage. The rate of labor was not high, and most of the payments were in kind. A laboring man received twelve deniers a day and a woman six: this was at a time when a dozen eggs cost eight deniers, a bushel of turnips four deniers, a fowl from two to six sols, a calf five livres, a sheep twenty-four sols, a fat pig three livres, and an ox, three or four years old, ten livres. The setier or twelve bushels of wheat sold for twenty sols, the same quantity of rye for ten, of barley for eight, and of oats for five. These are but uncertain data on which to calculate the purchasing power of a man’s wages, for at that time prices varied considerably more in different localities and from year to year than they do now.[167] Black unleavened bread--the “damper” of the gold diggings--formed the principal article of food among the poorer people, and was made of rye, barley, or buckwheat.[168] Maize appears to have been used more for cattle than for men. About thirteen years before the time of which we are treating, the poor of La Mans supported themselves during a famine upon acorn bread. The usual meat was pork or bacon--a diet which is supposed to have contributed to the virulence of the leprosy in earlier days, and hence a _languayeur_ had been appointed, whose sole business it was to examine the pigs’ tongues for leprosy spots. The odious _gabelle_ made salt so dear that the farmer had often to sell one-half of a pig to procure the means of pickling the other half.