THE CRAFT GUILDS OF FRANCE.
211
by the masters and workmen they possess powers of
summons and seizure, can inflict imprisonment for three days, and have summary jurisdiction
to the extent of 100 francs.
If the amount in dispute exceeds this sum, an
appeal lies to
the Tribunal of Commerce.
Their sittings are held in the evening, after the hours of labour,
and lawyers are not allowed to plead in these courts. Appeals are very unusual, and reversals
council of i^rucVhommes
of the
to
judgments even
many
IStli of
elected
is
still
more
thousands of francs.
March
so.
;
In Lyons alone the cases decided annually
As they were
first
affect the title
reconstituted in Lyons by Napoleon
1806, only thirteen years after the decree of the National
Assembly
I.
on the
in 1793,
be looked upon as a distinct survival of the most beneficial of the
tutions which owed their rise to the French covps d'etat.
they
may
very
faii-ly
insti-