The corporations assured work and pay.

People were not, as now, subject to the fluctuations of the market and the merciless capitalistic exploitation.

Great fortunes did not exist and everybody had enough to live on.

Sure of the future, unhurried, they created marvels of art, whose secret remains for ever lost.
"All the artisans who passed the three degrees of apprentice, journeyman, and master, developed subtlety and became veritable artists.
They ennobled the simplest of iron work, the commonest faience, the most ordinary chests and coffers.

Those corporations, putting themselves under the patronage of Saints--whose images, frequently besought, figured on their banners--preserved through the centuries the honest existence of the humble and notably raised the spiritual level of the people whom they protected.
"All that is decisively at an end.