The french equivalent of the market wallet

Hello,

Since it's super easy to have information about English uses of Market Wallet, in French I didn't know how to name it in my first language. The first proof of French using Market Wallet was this painting L'homme à la besace, of Françoise Duparc.
For higher resolution  click here, link to the Marseille museum.

L'homme à la besace (1760?)

Françoise Duparc (1728-1778)

Exposed at Musée des Beaux-Arts de Marseille

So was a besace the same thing of the market wallet? Or just a generic name for all types of bags?

Again Internet was full of information of American or English Market Wallet but I was desperated to find French sources, since I want to document New-France pieces of clothing and accessories.


One day I felt lucky to find this French market wallet on this painting of Carmontelle.

Le garde blés de Villers-Cotterets,
Louis Carrogis dit Carmontelle
Exposed at Musée Condé in Chantilly

So no name used but a visual confirmation that market wallet were used by French too for the same period. 

The name confirmation I was waiting for came unsuspectedly from the La Fontaine Fables I had as a gift this fall. The Fable is named ''La besace''. At the end of this little story, the writer describe the besace as having a pocket in front for defaults of everybody else and a pocket in the back for our own defaults.  This description is exactly a market wallet so the french name is besace!!!

Here the original sentences of Jean de La Fontaine

''On se voit d'un autre œil qu'on ne voit son prochain.
 

Le Fabricateur souverain
Nous créa Besaciers* tous de même manière,
Tant ceux du temps passé que du temps d'aujourd'hui :
Il fit pour nos défauts la poche de derrière,
Et celle de devant pour les défauts d'autrui.''

*Besaciers: besace bearer

My friend Cathrine Davis,
in 1750's Canadienne,
with her besace.
Credit photo: Joseph Gagné

You might think that I should have ask my historians friends to look for me in a historical dictionary the word besace but it would have been less surprising. Maybe it will be the next step!

Mlle Canadienne