on the river-side the fantastic
appearance given either by the trade of its occupant and his habits,
or by the originality of the exterior constructions invented by the
proprietors to use or abuse the Seine. The bridges being encumbered with
more mills than the necessities of navigation could allow, the Seine
formed as many enclosed basins as there were bridges. Some of these
basins in the heart of old Paris would have offered precious scenes and
tones of color to painters. What a forest of crossbeams supported the
mills with their huge sails and their wheels! What strange effects were
produced by the piles or props driven into the water to project the
upper floors of the houses above the stream! Unfortunately, the art of
genre painting did not exist in those days, and that of engraving was
in its infancy. We have therefore lost that curious spectacle, still
offered, though in miniature, by certain provincial towns, where the
rivers are overhung with wooden houses, and where, as at Vendome, the
basins, full of water grasses, are enclosed by immense iron railings, to
isolate each proprietor's share of the stream, which extends from bank
to bank.

The name of this street, which has now disappeared from the map,
sufficiently indicates the trade that was carried on in it. In those
days the merchants of each class of commerce, instead of dispersing
themselves about the city, kept together in the same neighborhood and
protected themselves mutually. Associated in corporations which limited
their number, they were still further united into guilds by the Church.
In this way prices were maintained. Also, the masters were not at the
mercy of their workmen, and did not obey their whims as they do to-day;
on the contrary, they made them their children, their apprentices, took
care of them, and taught them the intricacies of the trade. In order
to become a master, a workman had to produce a masterpiece, which was
always dedicated to the saint of his guild. Will any one dare to say
that the absence of competition destroyed the desire for perfection, or
lessened the beauty of products? What say you, you whose admiration
for the masterpieces of past ages has created the modern trade of the
sellers of bric-a-brac?

In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the trade of the furrier was
one of the most flourishing industries. The difficulty of obtaining
furs, which, being all brought from the north, required long and
perilous journeys, g