[16] Maxime Leroy, _Syndicats et Services Publics_ (Paris, 1909), p. 12.
With their simple organization, the _compagnons_ were able to exert a strong economic influence. They served as bureaus of employment. One _compagnon_, elected _rouleur_, was charged with the duty of finding employment for _compagnons_ and "aspirants". He kept a list of those in need of work and placed them in the order of their inscription. Usually the masters themselves addressed the _rouleurs_ for workingmen, when in need of any.
This fact gave the _compagnonnages_ a control over the supply of labor. They could withhold labor from a master who did not comply with their demands. They could direct their members into other towns of the _Tour_ if necessary, as everywhere the _compagnons_ would find friends and protection. They could, therefore, organize strikes and boycott a master or workshop for long periods of time. In fact, by these methods the _compagnonnages_ struggled for higher wages and better conditions of employment as far back as the sixteenth century. During the Great Revolution the _compagnonnages_ existed in twenty-seven trades and directed the strike-movement described above. They attained the height of their development during the first quarter of the nineteenth century when they were the only effective workingmen's organizations exerting an influence in the economic struggles of the time.
The _compagnonnages_ persisted in several trades during the larger part of the nineteenth century. After 1830, however, their influence declined. The new industrial conditions reduced the significance of the personal skill of the workingmen, shifted the boundaries of the ancient trades, and entirely transformed most of them. The rapid development of the modern means of communication made the _tour de France_ in its old form an anachronism. The spread of democratic and secular ideas brought the medieval usages and ideas of the _compagnonnages_ into disrepute and ridicule. Several attempts to reform the _compagnonnages_ and to bring them into harmony with the new conditions of life were made by members of the organization, but with no results.[17]
[17] On the _compagnonnage_ see, J. Connay, _Le Compagnonnage_, 1909; E. Martin St. Leon, _Le Compagnonnage_, 1901; Agricol Perdiguier, _Le Livre du Compagnonnage_, 1841.