Attending : Alexandre Aubourg, Guillaume Bazot, Loïc Charles, Guillaume Daudin, Pierre Gervais, Paul Girard, Pierre Hollegien, Guillaume Plique
1) Measurement unit treatment
Alexander Aubourg presents the system he has put in place to treat measure units and transform them into metric ones
The first database includes 277 measure units and treats those for which the name is enough. For comparison, one year of accounts for a merchant in Bordeaux includes 50 units in Marprof.
The second database includes units + merchandise for those that could not be treated. This includes 1197 lines.
The third base includes units + merchandize + import/export + partner. This includes 258 lines. In fine, that includes only imports, as exports can be dealt with without taking into account partners. A priori this file should get smaller and smaller as we discover that units are used only in one importing direction. Example of razière : used only for goods coming from UK. In fine, probably the French value from the North.
Some units do not exist in French metrology : « barils »
Loïc discusses of the local sources. There are local enquiries which give the value of local units. Units are often used for trade with only one foreign partner. Using the regional data (in which the quantities are given for all years) helps identifying the units used at the national level.
We should probably not do too much on that subject, as most observations are simple to deal with.
2) 1789
Special issues for 1789. We have unit values, quantities and total values treated at the national level. Things work properly for slightly more than 50% of quantities. The other do not fit. The problems are solvable, but at the price of 10 minutes per observation.
Maybe they did aggregate values and quantities and then put an approximate unit value (the middle of the range?).
In that case maybe we should just neglect the unit value.
There is a debate on this question
The issue is not retranscription, it is the verification.
Main errors : averaging of the unit value / decimal error / forgotten column / error with quantity conversion between different units
3) Retranscription
Loïc recapitulates what has been collected. The complete serie for La Rochelle. The whole (not complete) for Rouen and Caen. The selected ones for Bordeaux. The selected ones for Nantes & Rennes.
The national has been done
Marseille should be done by the end of the year
Bayonne : all from 1746. Thasectra.
Montpellier : maybe all (but not complete).
Loïc has done some checks and often the sum of the regional source indeed gives the national source. Which indicates that the national document is indeed useful with little modifications.
Debate on how to treat the existence of overlapping sources. Paul recommends one table per type of sources. I.e. 3 tables : one for the national / one for the directions / one for the bureaux.
4) Organizations of livedrive
– Organize the jpeg by archival source and reference
– Organize the pdf by sources (national / régional / bureaux). With the name including place – year – type of flow. There is a discussion on wether it should include a «stamp» or page with the archival reference
– Organize the excel files in yet a third group, with the same organization as the pdf
5) Drug paper
We discuss the future work of Pierre Hollegien on drug consumption in France
Next meeting : October 20th at 10am, Médialab, 13 rue de l’Université