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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mesures usuelles (French pronunciation: [məzyʁ yzɥɛl], customary measurements) were a system of measurement introduced by Napoleon I in 1812 to act as compromise between the metric system and traditional measurements. The system was restricted to use in the retail industry and continued in use until 1839.
The French First Republic's introduction of the metric system into France was poorly managed by modern standards. It was done district by district between 1795 and 1800, with Paris being the first district to change. Although thousands of pamphlets were distributed, the Agency of Weights and Measures which oversaw the introduction underestimated the work involved. Paris alone needed 500,000 metre sticks, yet one month after the metre became the sole legal unit of measure, the agency had only 25,000 in stock.[1] This, combined with the excesses of the Revolution and the high level of illiteracy, made the metric system unpopular. Many people still thought in mostly non-decimal terms using the fractional subdivisions of the previous system: a livre (pound) was thought to be necessarily divided into sixteen onces (ounces) and a toise (fathom or double-yard) into 72 pouces (inches), as though these were absolute concepts.
Napoleon I, the French Emperor, disliked the inconvenience of surrendering the high factorability of traditional measures in the name of decimalisation, and recognized the difficulty of getting it accepted by the populace.[2] Under the décret impérial du 12 février 1812 (imperial decree of 12 February 1812), he introduced a new system of measurement, the mesures usuelles or "customary measures", for use in small retail businesses. However, all government, legal and similar works still had to use the metric system and the metric system continued to be taught at all levels of education.[3][4]
The prototypes of the metric unit, the kilogram and the metre, enabled an immediate standardization of measurement over the whole country, replacing the varying legal measures in different parts of the country, and even more across the whole of Europe. The new livre (known as the livre métrique) was defined as five hundred grams, and the new toise (toise métrique) was defined as two metres. Products could be sold in shops under the old names and with the old relationships to one another, but with slightly different absolute sizes. This series of measurements was called mesures usuelles.
Napoleon's decree was revoked during the reign of Louis Philippe by the loi du 4 juillet 1837 (law of 4 July 1837). This took effect on 1 January 1840, and reinstated the original metric system, thus bringing the system of mesures usuelles to an end.[3]
The law authorised the following units of measure:[5]
The mesures usuelles did not include any units of length greater than the toise - the myriamètre (10 km) remaining in use throughout this period.[7]
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