Units of measurement in France before the French Revolution 4 parts in one million) than the "pied" used in France. According to the law of 19 Frimaire An VIII (December 10, 1799), Traditionally, the French pound ("livre") was defined as the mass of exactly of a French cubic foot of water. When the kilogram was defined, the knowledge that a "pied du Roi cube" filled with water masses exactly 70 French pounds was apparently lost. According to the traditional (cubic foot) definition, one "livre" would have been about 489.675 grams. According to the kilogramme definition, one "livre" was about 489.506 grammes. The difference is about 0.035%. However, a small
Pied Beauty Pied Beauty "Pied Beauty" is a curtal sonnet by the English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889). It was written in 1877, but not published until 1918, when it was included as part of the collection "Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins". In the poem, the narrator praises God for the variety of "dappled things" in nature, such as piebald cattle, trout and finches. He also describes how falling chestnuts resemble coals bursting in a fire, because of the way in which the chestnuts' reddish-brown meat is exposed when the shells break against the ground. The narrator then moves to an image