Chaptal was a rare talent. Even if he could not make gunpowder for Bonaparte as Bonaparte claimed, he was promoting the secularization of universities. He hoped industrialists and the government would recognize that many scientific discoveries could be put into practical use and generate wealth.
However, Chaptal's understanding of guilds was complicated. On the one hand, the abolition of privileges in 1789 ended the system that concentrated all commercial and industrial activity in the hands of a very small number of people. On the other, it also ended the paternalistic relationship that had existed between employers and employees.
Not every "parent" was kind, friendly, and willing to communicate properly with their "children." Some exploited apprentices like slaves.
During their visits, they found that workers carried something like a "passport" with them. It stated where they were employed and the nature of their work, so if they were stopped and questioned by patrolmen on the street, they could produce it to prove they were not vagrants and avoid arrest.
Many people judged others by their clothes. The police rarely questioned those who dressed respectably. In short, employers would write on it whether a worker owed them money and how the worker had performed. Later employers would then deduct part of the worker's wages to repay the former employer and decide how to treat the worker based on those previous comments.
To make it easier to find work in the future, many people were forced to swallow their anger. Employers, meanwhile, often ignored the 1781 law requiring the subordinate status of workers in industrial districts to be maintained. This led to two problems. One was that when workers ran out of money, they would not accept the loans kindly offered by their employers and would rather borrow from loan sharks.
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