the profits of an office were seven
livres ten sous."]

[Footnote 4181: Albert Babeau, "La Ville," ch. II., and "Histoire de
Troyes," I., ch. 1. At Troyes, fifty merchants, notables, elected the
judge-consul and two consuls; the merchants' guild possessed its own
hall and had its own meetings. At Paris, the drapers, mercers, grocers,
furriers, hatters and jewelers formed the six bodies of merchants.
The merchants' guild everywhere took precedence of other industrial
communities and enjoyed special privileges. "The merchants," says
Loyseau, "hold rank (qualite d'honneur), being styled honorable men,
honest persons and bourgeois of the towns, qualifications not attributed
to husbandmen, nor to sergeants, nor to artisans, nor to manual
laborers."--On paternal authority and domestic discipline in these old
bourgeois families see the History of Beaumarchais and his father. ("
Beaumarchais," by M. de Lomenie, vol. I.)]

[Footnote 4182: Albert Babeau, "Le village sous l'Ancien Regime," p.
56, ch. III and IV., (on the village syndics), and pp. 357 and 359. "The
peasants had the right to deliberate on their own affairs directly and
to elect their principal agents. They understood their own needs, were
able to make a sacrifice for school and church.... for repairs of the
town clock and the belfry. They appointed their own agents and generally
elected the most capable."--Ibid, "La Ville sous 1'Ancien Regime," p.29.
The artisans' guilds numbered at Paris one hundred and twenty-four.
at Amiens sixty-four, and at Troyes fifty, also Chalons-sur-Marne, at
Angers twenty-seven. The edicts of 1776 reduced them to forty-four at
Paris, and to twenty as the maximum for the principal towns within the
jurisdiction of the Paris parliament.--"Each guild formed a city within
a city... Like the communes, it had its special laws, its selected
chiefs, its assemblies, its own building or, at least, a chamber in
common, its banner, coat-of-arms and colors."--Ibid., "Histoire
de Troyes Pendant la Revolution," I., 13, 329. Trade guilds and
corporations bear the following titles, drawn up in 1789, from the files
of complaints: apothecaries, jewelers and watch-makers, booksellers and
printers, master-barbers, grocers, wax and candle-makers, bakers and
tailors, master shoemakers, eating-house-keepers, inn-keepers
and hatters, master-masons and plasterers in lime and cement,
master-joiners, coopers and cabinet-makers, master-cutlers, armorers,
and polishe