In mainland Europe, a commissionaire is an attendant, messenger or subordinate employed in hotels, whose chief duty is to attend at railway stations, secure customers, take charge of their luggage, carry out the necessary formalities with respect to it and have it sent on to the hotel.
In European civil law jurisdictions (e.g., France, Germany), a commissionaire is a person who acts in his or her own name for the account of a principal.
In addition, the commissionaire is contractually bound to the customer to deliver the goods sold on the terms agreed.
However, this view was unsuccessfully challenged by tax authorities in France, Norway and Italy.
[2] Commissionaire Peterson is a character in the 1892 Sherlock Holmes short story "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle".