“We have a German geologist who sees peasants digging up bones. Supposedly horse bones, but there is one who laughs, who talks about the soldiers of the imperial guard, who are tall, whose bones are easily confused with those of horses. And in the communal archives, the mayor of Braine-l’Alleud clearly speaks of the exhumation of corpses in order to trade in them. He warns the population of his commune and neighboring communes and recalls that article 360 of the The Penal Code punishes these exhumations. It directs this warning to farmers and landowners.” No one, according to Bernard Wilkin, will be arrested for these illegal exhumations.
Animal black made a lot of money. It is “hundreds of thousands of francs of the time, several times what a worker can earn in a lifetime.” One of the processes for making sugar involved mixing* animal charcoal with the preparation. Human bone was indeed found 200 years ago in the pastries of our ancestors… according to the historian who is more cynical than cannibalistic.
*Recipe published by the magazine L’Illustration in its issue of May 13, 1843.