Every Thursday a deafening cacophony awoke the villagers of Poissy in the early morning hours. Some of these sounds came from the nearby taverns where cattle merchants were carousing after their long journeys from regional fairs. The greatest noise came from the hundreds of cattle and thousands of sheep that had been driven to Poissy, a town dominated by its central square that looked over the river Seine and the Saint Germain forest, beyond which lay the western gates of Paris. The first cattle showing started at 4:00 a.m. in the summer months, 6:00 a.m. in the winter months; a second showing of sheep began at 8:30 a.m. in the summer, 9:30 a.m. in the winter. As the morning continued, market inspectors and tax collectors observed cattlemen and merchants marking their purchases and exchanging money (typically credit slips) for goods until the traders departed for the nearby taverns and country inns before leaving town in the early afternoon.

On the first market day after Lent in 1707, traffic leaving Poissy had suddenly come to a halt. All eyes pointed to the appearance of newly formed company of tax farmers at market, called “Treasurers of the Stock Market.” The crown recently awarded them a lease on the sol pour livre or 5 percent tax that they were to collect on the purchase price of all livestock. The tax farm had also imposed a new glitch in this carefully choreographed movement of livestock and merchants, a system whereby all purchases from now on had to be carefully recorded and transactions completed in cash not credit.