Today's expression... explained

Hello,

To eat one's white bread first

Moving from a happy state to one that is not.

This expression is attested in 1515 in the work of the poet Guillaume Dubois, known as Guillaume Crétin, at a time when, for the common people, bread was generally a grayish thing, rather very dark, as they did not have access to white flour cleaned of its impurities like that of today.

But when he could get hold of … a cleaner and finer flour, the kind generally reserved for high society, he did not hesitate to make lighter bread than usual, ‘white’ bread (though still far from today’s whiteness) of superior quality and taste. As a result, people then tended to eat it first, a quite understandable weakness, condemning themselves to sharing the lesser bread later on.

This old metaphor, which is akin to the saying “if you eat your white bread first, you’ll eat your black bread later,” has long since left the bread oven and the kitchen to become generalized to all occasions where one has started by doing the pleasant things (“eating the white bread”) without always realizing that one would subsequently have to endure various hardships (“the black bread,” also called “the black bread of adversity”).
It is generally used a posteriori, when a person has fully benefited from something (usually a comfortable situation) and is left completely destitute afterward.

tenderness

Marylena

Hello,

To say low masses

To speak to someone aside and in a low voice.

In the strict sense, since the mid-17th century, a low Mass, as opposed to a high Mass, is an unchanted Mass in which the priest recites the prayers.

It was at the end of the 19th century that the figurative sense we are interested in emerged.
But how could an unchanted Mass have given rise to an expression applied to a discreet dialogue between two people?

According to Alain Rey, this is because, during a true low Mass, the priest mumbles indistinct words that do not seem intended to be heard by the congregation, just like the words exchanged by those who talk about low Masses.

Marylena