Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky

Author:Mark Kurlansky [Kurlansky, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, History
ISBN: 978-0802779441
Publisher: Walker Books
Published: 2002-06-29T16:00:00+00:00

BY THE LATE eighteenth century, more than 3,000 French men, women, and even children were sentenced to prison or death every year for crimes against the gabelle. The salt law in France, as would later happen in India, was not the singular cause of revolution, but it became a symbol for all the injustices of government.

In 1789, the French revolted, declaring the establishment of a National Assembly. When King Louis XVI tried to send troops against this revolutionary legislature, a mob attacked the Bastille and an armed revolution began. That same year, the revolutionary legislature repealed the gabelle. Some in the Assembly had argued for a low salt tax universally applied. But in the end the Assembly voted for no salt tax at all, not even bothering to replace this mainstay of state revenues with another source of income.

On March 22, 1790, the National Assembly, calling the salt tax “odious,” annulled all trials for violation of the gabelle and ordered all those charged, on trial, or convicted to be set free.

Louis, accused of conspiring with Austrians and Prussians to overthrow the revolution, was beheaded. His wife, Marie Antoinette, who loved choucroute, was also beheaded, as were many of the Swiss soldiers of the Garde Royale. They also had acquired the court taste for choucroute and numerous inns had sprung up near the Palais Royal, where they had spent their meal breaks, feasting on choucroute with sausages and salted meats. The tradition of restaurants serving midday choucroute in that part of Paris continues to this day.

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