The Book of Travels by Ḥannā Diyāb

Author:Ḥannā Diyāb
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: NYU Press

CHAPTER TEN

THE LAST DAYS OF 1708

    10.1     On the fifteenth of December, Paris experienced a bout of cold weather so extreme that the trees froze stiff. So did the Seine—the river that flows through the city. The sheet of ice covering the river was as thick as a handspan and carriages could drive across it as if they were upon dry, rocky ground. The icy weather lasted fifteen days, killing people across the seven quarters of Paris, each as large as the city of Aleppo. In all, eighty thousand people perished, not counting the young children, the poor, and the foreign inhabitants of the city, and the church bells tolled for them all.156 Women were found huddled in bed with their children, and husbands embracing their wives, frozen to death because their homes were on the higher stories. The buildings of Paris have five stories: The higher up one lives, the cheaper the rent.

    10.2       The children of peasants who had come from their villages to the city looking for work were found dead on the roads, covered in manure. Paris was a ghost town. Everyone stayed home, confined to a single room, sitting by the fire, as I myself did. I spent fifteen days shut up in my room, warming myself by the fire.

The priests of the city were forced to set up braziers on the altars of their churches to prevent the sacramental wine from freezing. Many people even died while relieving themselves, because the urine froze in their urethras as it left their bodies, and killed them. Indoors, it was so cold that copper casks cracked, and people had to break their bread with adzes and moisten the pieces with hot water in order to eat them.

As for the orchards and trees, what can I say? They withered away completely. The same went for the vineyards and olive groves, as well as the crops, which froze after having yielded two or three harvests for the year. This bout of God’s wrath struck the entire region of France.

    10.3       After the fifteen days of cold had passed, I left my room and went to get a shave. The freezing walk home from the barbershop left me stiff as a statue. It was so cold that the hairs of my mustache began to fall out, and I was certain I was going to die. When I finally arrived at my room and they saw me in my condition, they ran to tell my master. He came to see me and immediately ordered the servants to strip off my clothes. They were unable to pull off my outer robes because my forearms were frozen stiff, so he told them to slit the sleeves open.

    10.4       Once my clothes were off and I was naked as the day I was born, they lit the fire. We had purchased a flask of eagle fat in the city of Tunis during our travels, and they slathered me with it from top to bottom, moving me close to the fire so the fat would melt all over my body.

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