The 4
November 1800 order was the beginning of a series of government efforts to
have the metric system accepted.
A 15
January 1801 circular insisted on the fact that "the definite intention of
the government is that the measures uniformity is established in all
Republic on 23 September" and hoped that "people will only be willing to
finish at last one of the most beautiful undertakings this century can boast
of".
In
the following times, the Department of the Interior had "mould measures"
sent to prefects "so that these moulds serve as models". It also had
readjusted in Paris the model weights that were previously distributed among
departments, and that were inaccurate after the standards were definitely
determined.
The
Department of the Interior also established directives which lasted for
long.
From
May 1801 to November 1801, the Department sent a certain number of diverse
letters and texts, but it sent especially eight very precise and detailed
directives on the production and verification of the measures. The whole
collection, which was published in 1826 is composed of 100 pages.
One
has to underline that these texts writers considered the allowance of using
former names as temporary. Indeed, they mentionned the latter only when it
was absolutely necessary and they described them as "popular translation" or
as "names allowed by the 4 November 1800 order".
The
government also had "the different kinds of new measures drawn and engraved,
not only to spread the knowledge of it, but above all to run and to make
their manufacturing uniform".
It
also encouraged the making of "comparison tables". The 23 November 1802
cicular read that "it will be difficult to bring the new measures into
general use without good books of the kind […] However, the tables whose
writting was demanded by prefects […] are still the ones to be consulted
preferably […] The prefects who have not sent me a thorough and final
publishing of these tables yet will have to get this sorted out as soon as
possible".
Nevertheless,
this circular gave a rather negative review of the new measures advances: "Although
one can hold up some departments as exemples of the operation advances,
there are no real progress outside the principal town in a majority of
departments. In a few others, almost everything has to be done. So much so
that the new measures replace the former ones in the shops of only Paris and
a certain number of cities."