Louis XIII

The long thin loaves of French bread are regarded in the rest of the world as an icon of France, alongside the Eiffel Tower. Their origin is said to be that one of the Austrian queens of France demanded the sort of loaf that she was accustomed to in Vienna. Possible candidates for the queen would be Anne of Austria, wife of Louis XIII, or Marie Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI. As central European wheat is hard, resembling North American wheat, this is a formidable problem with only French soft wheat available. A modern bakery technologist would find this difficult. 

Prior to the official edict creating the garden, Guy de la Brosse, one of Louis XIII s physicians, received permission for creating a royal botanical garden in 1626, and the land in 1633. 

The decree of Louis XIII was not a solitary occurrence. It has been repeated time and again through the history of psychiatry. The German mental hospital system, for example, was inaugurated in 1805 with the following declaration by Prince Karl August von Hardenberg ... 

Louis XIII decrees the founding of the Hopital General of Paris. In its functioning, or in its purpose, the Hdpital General had nothing to do with any medical concepts. . . a few years after its foundation, the Hdpital General of Paris alone contained six thousand persons, or around one percent... 

Louis XIII decrees the establishment of an hdpital gindral in every city of the kingdom. "It confined the debauched, spendthrift fathers, prodigal sons, blasphemers, men who seek to undo themselves, libertines.. . . We leave it to medical archeology to determine whether or not a man was sick, criminal, or insane who was admitted to the hospital for derangement of morals, or because he had mistreated his wife, and tried several times to kill himself. 2 ... 

Jean Beguin, a native of Lorraine, studied medicine and pharmacy at Sedan ( ), visited Italy, Germany and Hungary to study mining, and opened a school and laboratory of chemistry and pharmacy in Paris, where he was Almoner to King Louis XIII. In 1608 he published an edition of the Novum Lumen Chymicum of Sendivogius (see Vol. II) with a preface, which most authors have confused with the first edition of Beguin s own book, which was published in 1610 ... 

Assassination of Henry IV Catholic Louis XIII (1610-1643) accedes to the throne. 

---