Luxury in the ancien regime - essays, collectively called 'The Skilled Workforce in Paris, 1500-1800' - Brief Article

Magazine Antiques, Nov, 1999 by Alfred Mayor

This collection of learned essays, in French and English, resulted from two conferences held in Paris and in Oxford, England, in 1993 with the collective title The Skilled Workforce in Paris, 15001800. These conferences grew out of others at the Centre for Metropolitan History at the University of London, all of them sponsored by the Achievement Project and funded by the Renaissance Trust.

The introduction emphasizes that the results presented here "are stepping stones, in fact, towards a more complete depiction of an area of economic and social life that has been relatively neglected by historians." Although the thirteen essays are grouped under the forthright "Making***;' "Marketing," " Consuming," and "Reflections," some of the stepping-stones are more solid than others.

For readers in a hurry, the three overviews contained in "Reflections" will prove the most rewarding, as their authors roam freely, comparing the situation in Pads with that in London and, in smaller measure, the rest of Europe. They point out that skilled foreign craftsmen in particular were solicited by the sovereigns of England and France, since imported luxury goods were a drain on the balance of payments then as now. Among these migratory, experts were Flemish diamond cutters in France, practicing a skill the French failed to master. The practice of binding books in gold-tooled leather originated in Italy, but by the second half of the sixteenth century was flourishing in France. Veneered furniture was introduced in France by immigrant cabinetmakers from Germany and the Low Countries. Flemish tapestry weavers settled into the Gobelins factory in the early seventeenth century, and the royal glass manufactory was established in 1665 in the Faubourg Saint Antoine in Paris, employing "13 Venetian specialists who had been enticed to France by secret agents. Two of them, however, were murdered in 1667 by Venetian agents, and the others were so frightened that they had to be sent home."

The leitmotiv of these essays, and rightly so, is constant reference to the marchands-merciers of Paris. These retail merchants had accumulated privileges since the thirteenth century, and by 1613 were permitted to trade in all sorts of merchandise without interference, thereby intersecting many artisanal fiefdoms.

To become a marchand-mercier required French nationality and three years' continuous apprenticeship, followed by three more years of work. The duties of an apprentice make the responsibilities of a Seeing Eye dog seem inconsequential. He had to open and close the store; keep it dean; sweep the sidewalk; fetch merchandise with dispatch; study the merchant's marks, stock numbers, and prices until he knew them by heart so that he could himself make sales if necessary; make sure not to be taken in by shoddy merchandise; know how to write and do sums; make himself loved by his master and mistress; be faithful, civil, and honest; admit an impulse to do wrong to his master lest his master accuse him of it first; guard the shop from thieves when the salespeople were busy; learn how to measure, weigh, sell, and deliver expertly; and "never do lowly things like wash the dishes, walk and play with children, clean shoes, and other base tasks that he might be asked to do." The master himself was obligated not to allow these things to happen.

However, it was all worth it. The marchands-merciers were "makers of nothing, sellers of everything," as the saying went. They were the middlemen and their secret was capital. Even famous artisans had no capital, and rich buyers of luxury goods were reluctant to part with theirs for things they had bought. The marchands-merciers supplied the artisans with orders and raw materials, and the consumers with credit, building in a markup for anticipated delays in payment.

As one-man department stores, they imported what they hoped would sell and encouraged innovations from their suppliers. While they were not permitted to make anything, they could enjoliver (embellish) everything. "For instance, they had pieces of Chinese export porcelain mounted in brass work, so that an object which had been cheaply mass-produced in China became a work of art, individualized, original and expensive." By combining elements they had in stock, they could create novelties with relative ease. And as fashion is novelty....

In keeping with their stock, the marchands-merciers kept glittering "shops where the luxury is only surpassed by the flow of gracious words and eager civilities," as a commentator reported in 1715. Large expensive glass windows, mirrors, paneling, gilding, and comfortable chairs were all part of the magic, attracting both serious shoppers and window-shoppers. The marchands-merciers tended to settle in and around the rue Saint-Honore, which has the same reputation for luxury today as it did in the eighteenth century.

The Englishman William CoMe, visiting the Paris shop of Madame Dulac in 1765, described one of the other seductions of the marchands-merciers - themselves. He wrote of "that extravagant and expensive shop; where the Mistress was as tempting as the Things she sold, and where a younger man than myself would run the risk of losing that which is of more value than Money... so that it is no wonder that such a shop was thronged with customers, or that the Mistress of it might boldly set what price she thought proper upon her commodities: for both her person, tho' drawing towards forty, as well as I could judge, voice and manner, were so engaging, that it was almost next to impossible to refuse her what she asked for them, or to go away without purchasing something both to remember where you bought it, as well as the manufacture itself."