[47]. In Provençal, the principal idiom of the Occitanian language, nouns take no plural form; so pán, cáno, &c., do not change. The Provençal words in this chapter are pronounced—páng, cánn, saomádd, eymīnn, escandáo, panáo, cárrg, miyeyròl.
[48]. Escandau is to gauge, to sound depths, to standardise. This word is from the same root as ‘scandalise’ applied to moral tripping, and then to the use of the ‘stiliard,’ the lever-balance that trips with any inequality of weight.
[49]. The cosso is a wooden bowl, Sc. ‘luggie,’ used by shepherds. Our rod is in some districts a ‘lug.’
[50]. There were relations between Burgundy and England. The former was, up to the fall of its powerful dukes in the sixteenth century, a state enjoying prosperity and independence, while France was mostly in a condition of misery. It had, and retained till quite recently, its system of measures and weights, derived from the southern system at the time when Arles was the capital of the kingdom of Burgundy. It had two toises, one = 7-1/2 French feet, the other, for field measure, = 9-1/2 French feet. Now the first seems to have passed to England, for a time at least, for the Liber Albus, 1419, contains an order for the City of London:
‘The Toise of pavement to be 7-1/2 feet in length, and the foot of St. Paul in breadth.’
The English wool-weights, the wey, stone (12 French lb.) and clove, were current in Burgundy and in Southern France.
CHAPTER XXII
THE METRIC SYSTEM
The great diversity in the weights and measures used in different parts of France, and the discordance between the series of the official system, or want of system, were inconvenient, and tended to become more so with the increasing facilities of communication between the provinces. Unification was required, and was being studied at the time when the Revolution broke out.
The obvious plan was to make such alterations in the Paris system as were strictly necessary, keeping to the main standards of length and capacity, standards not irreconcilable, and to make it obligatory throughout France. As Napoleon said, ‘It was so simple that it could have been done in twenty-four hours, and adopted throughout France in less than a year.’