could keep them above
want. Their earnings were very small at the best; and these small gains
were so much lessened by the work her father was called out to do upon
the roads--and, of the money brought home, so much went to buy the
quantity of salt which they were compelled by law to purchase, that too
little remained to feed and clothe the family properly.

This story of the salt will scarcely be believed now; but it was found,
throughout France, about eighty years ago, to be only too true. An
enormous tax was laid upon salt, as one of the articles which people
could not live without, and which therefore everybody must buy. To make
this tax yield plenty of money to the king, there was a law which fixed
the price of salt enormously high, and which compelled every person in
France above eight years old to buy a certain quantity of salt, whether
it was wanted or not. By the same law, people were forbidden to sell
salt to one another, though one poor person might be in want of it, and
his next-door neighbour have his full quantity, without any food to eat
it with. Even in such a case as this, if a starving man ventured to
sell salt for a loaf of bread, he was subject to severe punishment.
Now, Marie's brothers were just ten and nine years old; and the
hardships of the family had been increased since these poor boys became
the cause of their father having to buy their portion of salt. Just
able before to get on, the family were, by this additional tax, brought
down to a state of want; and Marie begged her father not to say a word
about giving her a single penny, to help her marriage with Charles; for
she saw well that he would never be able to do it. Her poor father
could not contradict her.

As he could do nothing for her, he did not like to oppose the plan which
the young people were found at length to have talked over. Charles knew
that, in cases of great poverty, huts had been built in a wood, or caves
scooped out in the side of the chalk-hills, where people lived who could
not hire, or buy, or build a house. He told Marie that he would build a
hut in the wood, and that he would then marry, and live or starve
together, since there was no use in waiting longer, seeing, as they did,
that their prospect never could improve. The lord of the chateau would
not object, he was sure; as the lords always got out of their peasantry
much more service than would pay for the stakes and twigs of a hut in
the wood. Marie w