Parisians' love for lemonade was spreading so quickly that by the time the plague surrounded the city, the business was apparently still in the hands of street vendors. Lemonade wasn't just popular - it was loved everywhere, and the traders supplied it to every corner of the city. Lemonin, found in lemons and other citrus fruits, is a natural insecticide and repellent. The lemonin-rich peel is the most effective part of the lemon.
Human beings have invented insect control chemicals for centuries, and as a result, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has compiled a list of fifteen insecticides with lemonin as their active ingredient. These include crawling and flying insect sprays, flea products for pets, and tick protection. The French sent unused zest and lemon pomegranates to the most appropriate place to break the flea-rat-man chain to the garbage dump. Thus, the whole city was accidentally but effectively treated with lemonin. Lemonade traders were patrolling safer neighborhoods, dumped in a zest and pulp dump, improving the situation in poor areas. The rats didn't bother so much - being omnivorous, they were probably even glad they had the chance to taste the new taste. And fortunately, plague-infected fleas were killed.
Many of the common drinks also had similar properties: anise in eau d'anise, juniper in esprit de genievre, coriander in eau de coriandre, fennel in ieau de fenouil. In fact, many of the herbs that were part of the imported drinks were also used in the manufacture of "vinegar of the four robbers". And in Paris in 1668, there were practically no places where the plague fleas would feel safe. In the city's landfills, in the ditches and pipes used by rats, the flea did not survive, because these places were treated with lemonin and other repellents. Millions of exhausted fleas died on the streets, pining for sandstone, and people and rats thanked their fate.
In the following years, various historical characters tried to take credit for saving Paris from a new outbreak of bubonic plague. Among them was Lieutenant General Gabrielle Nicolas de la Rénie, who has a reputation as the author of a number of progressive and peacemaking legal initiatives and measures to eradicate the plague.
Ministers applauded themselves for their insight, including Jean-Baptiste Colbert, who tightened the rules of trade by demanding that all goods entering Paris be carefully aired, the heads of the six guilds and Judge Jacques Belin. Observing this, royal councilors patted the back of the servicemen, thanks to the help provided, and Louis XIV celebrated the accession of several cities in Belgium, which at the time was part of Spain. But the day would come and there would be a man who would explain everything and erect a bronze monument to the lemonade merchant, who would look forward and throw a squeezed lemon over his shoulder into the trash heap. Perhaps there will even be an inscription there:
Les rats, desole, nous toujours avons pense qu'il etait vous
("Rats, sorry we blamed you").