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