METER STANDARD
In Paris, history is at the corner of every street! At the end of the arcades on Rue Vaugirard, a little before Servandoni Street, lies a relic of the revolutionary era: one of the standard meters installed by revolutionaries in the most frequented places in the capital. At the beginning, 16 engraved marbles were scattered in the city, but it is the only one that does not move from its place of origin (another is place Vendôme). In 1791, it was decided to set up a new metric system. The Academy of Sciences then defines the metre as the-millionth part of a quarter of a land meridian, a quarter of a circle linking one of the two poles to Ecuador. Before that, we were measured, in an inch, in spacer and above all in the "foot-of-the-king" (quellle the size of the monarch in place), which would annoy the revolutionaries! Today, it seems to us natural to handle metre and centimetre as easily as we say hello but this remains reminds us that some centuries ago, the Parisians certainly had to make many trips to verify that their measures are fair!