so many people who do not write, who do not calculate, and who appreciate time only by a routine based on common opinion; 4) The expense of changing the clocks would be enormous; 5) Finally, citizens and watchmakers would be infinitely dismayed, some to change their watches, others to lose the ability to sell those that are already made. This truth is acquired by the result of the contest which took place recently, under the decree on watchmaking movements. But by asking that the decimal division of the day is not a condition of rigor, there is no disagreement that there are several circumstances where it has advantages. We know that in several objects of the Navy service, in astronomical or trigonometric calculations, and for delicate experiments, the decimal division of time is more convenient. It will therefore be good to reserve it for these cases, until the use can spread more generally, which will happen by itself imperceptibly. Thus, the law of 18 Germinal An III (April 7, 1795) establishing the metric system, rather than including metric units for time, repealed the mandatory use of decimal time, although its use continued for a number of years in some places. As predicted, it was quickly found to be useful by astronomers, who still use it in the form of fractional days. Carl Friedrich Gauss recommended the ephemeris second as a metric base unit for time interval in 1832, which eventually became the atomic second in the International System. However, for longer periods of time interval, the old non-decimal units were approved for use. Later Proposals At the International Meridian Conference of 1884, the following resolution was proposed by the French delegation and passed nem con (with 3 abstentions): VII. That the Conference expresses the hope that the technical studies designed to regulate and extend the application of the decimal system to the division of angular space and of time shall be resumed, so as to permit the extension of this application to all cases in which it presents real advantages. In the 1890s, Joseph Charles François de Rey-Pailhade, president of the Toulouse Geographical Society, proposed dividing the day into 100 parts, called cés, equal to 14.4 standard minutes, and each divided into 10 decicés, 100 centicés, etc. The Toulouse Chamber of Commerce adopted a resolution supporting his proposal in April 1897. Although widely published, the proposal received little backing. The