Some people die...
Others make a living from it

Oysters are accused of causing typhoid fever; so the fearful people decided that they would deprive themselves of their tasty flesh.

We will not put on trial the poorly maintained parks, the neighborhoods of sewers which caused, in fact, more than one case of the dreaded disease.

If there are unlucky people killed by oysters, others owe them their daily bread.

In Cancale, for example, in April each year, all maritime registrants who own a boat can fish for free. They are entitled to thirty hours, for a week.

Equipped with a special net which serves as a scraper, they sit at the back of the boat and throw back what they have caught in a pile on the shore. To handle the net, two men are needed, at least.

The women collect the oysters, sort them, and then work to make them grow, while their husbands go to Iceland.

Many of them become widows prematurely; They then continue this trade, which is often their only resource.

The finest oysters are parked in spaces granted by the city to fishermen, the small and medium sized ones are sold or given to aid workers.

This fishing represents a capital which must be developed, and whose annual return, of six to eight hundred francs (before the war), was enough to feed many of these brave people, living on little.

MIREILLE DE MONGIVAL.

The Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat Reserve