=283. Manufactures; the gild system maintained in spite of its bad effects.=—Before we leave the commercial history of France in this period we must consider still another subject, the organization of manufacturing, to understand why the country did not make better use of its resources, and why it entered the nineteenth century handicapped in competition with a country like England. Three general topics will be considered: (1) the gild system; (2) the national regulation of manufactures; (3) the royal or privileged manufactures. (1) The gilds which in England during this period gave place to a more modern and more efficient system persisted in France and even extended their influence. When the government was in want of money it found the gilds more convenient subjects of taxation than scattered artisans; for fiscal reasons, therefore, and not for any economic advantages, it encouraged and even compelled artisans to unite in gilds on the old model. The result was a rigid separation of allied trades and a complication of processes which would seem incredibly stupid to a modern merchant or to the head of a modern factory. =284. Separation of trades.=—At Amiens there were nine distinct corporations, each with its specific regulations, engaged in the manufacture of woolens alone. Every gild watched jealously to see that another gild did not infringe on its petty field, and there was an interminable bickering among them over the question of monopoly. The quarrel of the goose-roasters and the poulterers lasted half a century, and went against the poulterers, who were restricted to the sale of uncooked game; but the roasters emerged from the conflict only to meet another foe, the cooks, who were flushed with a recent triumph over the gild of “vinegarers-mustarders” (who made sauces); and after another half-century the cooks succeeded in limiting the right of the roasters to sell cooked meat. This is an example of the conflicts which all the time absorbed the energy and the resources of people who were engaged in kindred lines of retail trade and manufactures; cobblers and shoemakers; old-clothes men and tailors; watchmakers and clock-makers; bakers and restaurant-keepers; and so on through a list that seems interminable. Some tradesmen had a specially long list of enemies. The mercers, for instance, who dealt in certain lines of dry-goods, in the course of a century had sixteen decisions of the supreme court (Parlement) in their conflict with the glovers; and fought also the “bonneters-cappers,” and nearly all the other tradesmen whose wares they sold. The question, who had the right to make and sell buttons, rose nearly to the dignity of a question of state; search was made in private houses for illegal buttons, and private individuals were arrested in the street for wearing them.