Purser, both a worker and a merchant who makes and sells purses for the hair, all kinds of products for the use of hunters and soldiers to hold their supplies, such as game bags, cartridges, cartridge pouches, etc., all kinds of sacks or cases for books and flasks, skull caps, umbrellas, parasols, etc. [1]

The Pursers ’ Guild is governed by three jurors, of whom the most senior leaves office each year to make room for another who is elected on August 11, so that each juror holds office for two years in a row. [2]

It is the jurors who deliver letters of apprenticeship and mastership, who administer the masterpiece [i.e., the mastership exam], and who make their visits [to the shops] every three months, as stipulated in the statutes.

The apprentice may not be indentured for less than four years, and the master may have only one apprentice at a time. He may nevertheless take on a second apprentice after the first has completed three and one half years.

The apprentice who has finished his apprenticeship must work a further three years as a journeyman with the masters. Every aspirant to the mastership must complete a masterpiece, unless he is the son of a master.

To become a master, the foreign apprentice must serve [as a journeyman] for five years, three of them with the same master, and the other two where he likes.

The masterpiece consists of five pieces: that is, a round purse with a leather base; another of velvet, embroidered in gold and silver with fringes and buttons of the same; a game pouch of morocco and iron, equipped with its spring, with strings and buttons of leather; another game pouch of morocco and curved iron, similarly equipped with its spring; and finally a morocco for men, which is to say a morocco bag that men use to place under their knees.

Widows may keep shop and enjoy the other privileges of mastership, except the right to take on apprentices, which they do not possess, but they may nevertheless continue with one who began during their husband’s lifetime.

Masters may not intercept merchandise within twenty leagues of Paris. [3]

The patrons of the Guild are Saint Brice and Our Lady of the Fountain. [4]

1. With the exception of the first paragraph, this entire article is simply an abridgement of the article “Boursier” in Jacques Savary des Bruslons, Dictionnaire universel de commerce, contenant tout ce qui concerne le commerce qui se fait dans les quatre parties du monde (Geneva: Cramer & Philibert, 1744), 4: 524–525. A “purse for the hair” ( bourse à cheveux ) was used mainly by men to tie back long hair in a pony-tail. A cartridge ( cartouche ) in the eighteenth century was typically made of paper or cardboard, and held a premeasured quantity of gunpowder to enable quicker reloading of a musket. Despite its name, a so-called “game pouch” ( gibecière ) could hold all sorts of supplies besides game, and was thus carried by soldiers as well as hunters. Skull caps ( calottes ) were worn chiefly by priests. The plate set in volume 19 of the Encyclopédie offers a much more complete list of the pursers’ products.

2. This confusingly worded sentence is copied, with some abridgement, from Savary des Bruslons, Dictionnaire universel de commerce , 4:524. If the Guild’s governing board was composed of three jurors, with one new juror elected each year, then we would expect the term of office to last three years, not two. Each new juror served his first year as the Guild’s accountant ( juré comptable ), so perhaps the author meant that he held office for two years in addition to his year as accountant. The compilers of the Encyclopédie were apparently unaware that the rule had changed in 1745. Henceforward the governing board of the Pursers’ Guild was composed of four jurors, of whom two were elected each year, so that the term of office was now in fact two years. Statuts et règlemens de la communauté des maîtres boursiers ([Paris]: Desprez, 1756), 3–4.

3. In 1669, to prevent their gaining an unfair advantage, Louis XIV had made it illegal for all Parisian merchants to intercept merchandise on its way to Paris ( aller au devant des marchandises ) and purchase it en route. The pursers seem to have been the only guild to incorporate the same rule into their statutes. A distance of twenty leagues was about eighty kilometers. Ordonnance de Louis XIV donnée au mois de mars 1669 concernant la jurisdiction du prévost des marchands et eschevins de la ville de Paris (Paris: Leonard, 1676), 11.

4. Saint Brice became the fourth bishop of Tours in 397. The statutes of the Pursers’ Guild, however, cite its patron saints as Our Lady of the Fountain and “Saint Brieux,” an alternative spelling for Saint Brieuc, founder in about 480 of the town in Brittany that bears his name. Without attempting to resolve the question, the Dictionnaire universel de commerce states that “The patrons of the Guild are Saint Brice, or Brieux, and Our Lady of the Fountain.” Statuts et règlemens de la communauté des maîtres boursiers , 15; Savary des Bruslons, Dictionnaire universel de commerce , 4:525.