pretensions of her
sons by her two marriages the queen-mother--complained bitterly that
mothers in Paris had been compelled to kill their own children outright
to save them from starving to death in lingering agony. "And if you are
brought to that extremity," replied the duchess, "as for the sake of our
holy religion to be forced to kill your own children, do you think that
so great a matter after all? What are your children made of more than
other people's children? What are we all but dirt and dust?" Such was the
consolation administered by the mother of the man who governed Paris, and
defended its gates against its lawful sovereign at the command of a
foreigner; while the priests in their turn persuaded the populace that it
was far more righteous to kill their own children, if they had no food to
give them, than to obtain food by recognising a heretic king.

It was related too, and believed, that in some instances mothers had
salted the bodies of their dead children and fed upon them, day by day,
until the hideous repast would no longer support their own life. They
died, and the secret was revealed by servants who had partaken of the
food. The Spanish ambassador, Mendoza, advised recourse to an article of
diet which had been used in some of the oriental sieges. The counsel at
first was rejected as coming from the agent of Spain, who wished at all
hazards to save the capital of France from falling out of the hands of
his master into those of the heretic. But dire necessity prevailed, and
the bones of the dead were taken in considerable quantities from the
cemeteries, ground into flour, baked into bread, and consumed. It was
called Madame Montpensier's cake, because the duchess earnestly
proclaimed its merits to the poor Parisians. "She was never known to
taste it herself, however," bitterly observed one who lived in Paris
through that horrible summer. She was right to abstain, for all who ate
of it died, and the Montpensier flour fell into disuse.

Lansquenets and other soldiers, mad with hunger and rage, when they could
no longer find dogs to feed on, chased children through the streets, and
were known in several instances to kill and devour them on the spot. To
those expressing horror at the perpetration of such a crime, a leading
personage, member of the Council of Nine, maintained that there was less
danger to one's soul in satisfying one's hunger with a dead child, in
case of necessity, than in recognizing the