Philippe le Bel issued several prohibitory enactments also in the interest of home commerce and local industry, which Louis X. confirmed. Philippe le Long attempted even to outdo the judicious efforts of Louis XI., and tried, though unsuccessfully, to establish a uniformity in the weights and measures throughout the kingdom; a reform, however, which was never accomplished until the revolution of 1789. It is difficult to credit how many different weights and measures were in use at that time, each one varying according to local custom or the choice of the lord of the soil, who probably in some way profited by the confusion which this uncertain state of things must have produced. The fraud and errors to which this led may easily be imagined, particularly in the intercourse between one part of the country and another. The feudal stamp is here thoroughly exhibited; as M. Charles de Grandmaison remarks, "Nothing is fixed, nothing is uniform, everything is special and arbitrary, settled by the lord of the soil by virtue of his right of _justesse_, by which he undertook the regulation and superintendence of the weights and measures in use in his lordship." Measures of length and contents often differed much from one another, although they might be similarly named, and it would require very complicated comparative tables approximately to fix their value. The _pied de roi_ was from ten to twelve inches, and was the least varying measure. The fathom differed much in different parts, and in the attempt to determine the relations between the innumerable measures of contents which we find recorded--a knowledge of which must have been necessary for the commerce of the period--we are stopped by a labyrinth of incomprehensible calculations, which it is impossible to determine with any degree of certainty. The weights were more uniform and less uncertain. The pound was everywhere in use, but it was not everywhere of the same standard (Fig. 201). For instance, at Paris it weighed sixteen ounces, whereas at Lyons it only weighed fourteen; and in weighing silk fifteen ounces to the pound was the rule. At Toulouse and in Upper Languedoc the pound was only thirteen and a half ounces; at Marseilles, thirteen ounces; and at other places it even fell to twelve ounces. There was in Paris a public scale called _poids du roi_; but this scale, though a most important means of revenue, was a great hindrance to retail trade. In spite of these petty and irritating impediments, the commerce of France extended throughout the whole world. [Illustration: Fig. 197.--View of Lubeck and its Harbour (Sixteenth Century).--From a Copper-plate in the Work of P. Bertius, "Commentaria Rerum Germanicarum," in 4to: Amsterdam, 1616.]