Amman, in
the Sixteenth Century.

[Illustration: Fig. 214.--Cloth-worker.]

[Illustration: Fig. 215.--Tailor.]

[Illustration: Fig. 216.--Hatter.]

[Illustration: Fig. 217.--Dyer.]

[Illustration: Fig. 218.--Druggist]

[Illustration: Fig. 219.--Barber]

[Illustration: Fig. 220.--Goldsmith]

[Illustration: Fig. 221.--Goldbeater]

[Illustration: Fig. 222.--Pin and Needle Maker.]

[Illustration: Fig. 223.--Clasp-maker.]

[Illustration: Fig. 224.--Wire-worker.]

[Illustration: Fig. 225.--Dice-maker.]

[Illustration: Fig. 226.--Sword-maker.]

[Illustration: Fig. 227.--Armourer.]

[Illustration: Fig. 228.--Spur-maker.]

[Illustration: Fig. 229.--Shoemaker.]

[Illustration: Fig. 230.--Basin-maker.]

[Illustration: Fig. 231.--Tinman.]

[Illustration: Fig. 232.--Coppersmith.]

[Illustration: Fig. 233.--Bell and Cannon Caster.]

Apart from the privilege which these six bodies of merchants exclusively
enjoyed of being called upon to appear, though at their own expense, in
the civic processions and at the public ceremonials, and to carry the
canopy over the heads of kings, queens, or princes on their state entry
into the capital (Fig. 234), it would be difficult to specify the nature
of the privileges which were granted to them, and of which they were so
jealous. It is clear, however, that these six bodies were imbued with a
kind of aristocratic spirit which made them place trading much above
handicraft in their own class, and set a high value on their calling as
merchants. Thus contemporary historians tell us that any merchant who
compromised the dignity of the company "fell into the class of the lower
orders;" that mercers boasted of excluding from their body the
upholsterers, "who were but artisans;" that hatters, who were admitted
into the _Six Corps_ to replace one of the other trades, became in
consequence "merchants instead of artisans, which they had been up to that
time."

Notwithstanding the statutes so carefully compiled and revised by Etienne
Boileau and his successors, and in spite of the numerous arbitrary rules
which the sovereigns, the magistrates, and the corporations themselves
strenuously endeavoured to frame, order and unity were far from governing
the commerce and industry of Paris during the Middle Ages, and what took
place in Paris generally repeated itself elsewhere. Serious disputes
continually arose between the authorities and those amenable to their
jurisdiction, and between