The corde, a field-measure used before the surveyor’s chain, was of variable length. In Burgundy the league of 3000 toises was divided for roadwork into 50 portées, of 12 cordes; these would thus be 5 toises or 30 feet. But there seems also to have been a corde of 33 feet, perhaps reduced feet, and thus = 30 royal feet, and this, doubled, was used as the rough measure of a ‘cord’ of firewood = 4 × 4 feet, in 4-foot logs. This is the probable origin of our ‘cord-wood’ as applied to stacked logs for fuel.
The units are the square toise = 4·543 sq. yards, the perche and the arpent, with other units in local usage.
There were three different perches officially recognised, and still in common use.
1. _Perche d’ordonnance_ or of the _Eaux et Forêts_ administration, 22 royal feet = 23·466 English feet; the square perch of 484 sq. feet = 13·44 sq. toises = 2 sq. rods.
The approximate coincidence of the quarter-aune with the reduced royal foot, i.e. of 12 Roman inches with 11 royal inches, was the probable reason of the standard perch being fixed at 22 feet = 24 Roman feet or 6 aunes.
The standard arpent was 100 square perches = 1344 sq. toises = 200 rods or 1·26 acre.
2. _Perche commune_, 20 royal feet = 21·3 English feet, the square perch of 400 sq. feet = 11·11 sq. toises = 50·47 sq. yards.
The _arpent commun_ was 100 of these square perches = 1111 sq. toises = 1·04 acre.
3. _Perche de Paris_, 18 royal feet = 19·83 English feet, the square perch of 324 sq. feet = 9 sq. toises = 40·9 sq. yards.
The _arpent de Paris_ was 100 of these square perches = 900 sq. toises = 0·844 acre.
The arpent de Paris is that of Mauritius.
The acre de Normandie varies according to its perch, but it is always 160 sq. perches, and if these be standard it is equal to 2 acres. But the usual unit is the vergée or rood, of 40 perches = 1/2 acre.
It has been seen that the Jersey vergée is 40 perches of 22 reduced English feet square, the foot being 11 inches. This is an adaptation of a very general Normandy perch, 22 feet of 11 French inches. It is = 0·44 acre.
Local French land-measures varied considerably, from different standards of perch, from different lengths taken for the foot of the perch. But the size of the unit, Journal, Estrée, &c., &c., is very generally = 1400 to 1600 square perches or roughly about 1-1/2 acre. These measures, so irrational to the Parisian, are dear to the peasant’s heart; he understands them, and as people do not buy land as they would apples or eggs, no one is deceived.