High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles A marchand-mercier is a French term for a type of entrepreneur working outside the guild system of craftsmen but carefully constrained by the regulations of a corporation under rules codified in 1613.. The reduplicative term literally means a merchant of merchandise, but in the 18th century took the connotation of a merchant of objets d'art. Earliest references to this Corps de la Ville de Paris can be found...