At Amiens, as inspector of manufactures, Roland had a still better opportunity to see the defects of the financial and commercial system of France. At that time, in almost all the villages of the kingdom, the exercise of the different arts and trades was concentrated in the hands of a small number of masters, united in trades-unions, who alone could make and sell certain objects. The man who wished to enter a trade could only do so by acquiring a _maîtrise_. To do this he must go through a long and painful apprenticeship and spend much money to satisfy the numerous imposts and exactions. Frequently a large part of the sum which he needed for setting up his shop or store was consumed in acquiring his license. Certain unions excluded all but sons of masters, or those who had married the widows of masters; others rejected all who were born in another town—foreigners, as they called them. In a number of the unions a married man could not be an apprentice. To practise his trade after having served his apprenticeship, a linen-dealer must pay twenty-one hundred livres; a dyer, thirteen hundred and fifty; a mason, seventeen hundred; a butcher, fifteen hundred; a potter, twenty-four hundred; and so on through all the trades of the community. One could not work if he would, unless the union gave him permission, and all classes of citizens were obliged to submit to the dictation of the unions as to whom they should hire. So narrow was the spirit of these organizations that women were not allowed to carry on even such industries as embroidery. Worse, in Roland’s eyes, were the restrictions on the way in which an article was to be manufactured. These were so numerous that industrial genius and initiative were practically prevented, that the manufacturer could not respond to the demands of fashion and of taste, and that competition with foreign trade was largely cut off. He could make only certain stuffs. The dimensions were fixed; the dyeing and stamping must follow a certain formula; they must bear a certain mark. If by any accident, intentional or not, a stuff was turned out which did not conform exactly to the rules, the severest penalty was fixed. A system of inspection, most irritating and frequently unjust, was made of every piece of goods; even houses with long reputation for honest manufacturing were subjected to this examination, which was sometimes little more than a kind of spying exercised by young and incapable men who had no commercial training. A grave injustice was according the title of _manufacture royale_ as a favor, or often, to new institutions, for a sum. Roland clashed constantly with these regulations throughout his term in Amiens.