gold-tooled arabesques of graceful lines and fleurons, may be found the reflection of the absorbing interest felt by Venice for the decoration of the East, - especially for the painted manuscripts and lacquered covers of the Persions, introduced by Aldus, the Printer, - together with the technique of the goldsmith's art of her own Renaissance. Thereafter, little influence from the outside seems to have affected the binders of France, except, when, the Revolution having laid its ban on all symbols or tools suggestive of the past, they turned to England for help from Roger Payne (the only great binder that country ever produced), and when, later, in our own day, they once more adopted a style of English manufacture.

The effects of the other arts upon binding design is not difficult to unravel. To the early binders of the printed book typography gave of its ornament which it in turn had received from the illuminations on the manuscripts and from the lovely rolls and stamps of their pig-skin covers. We see in successive periods the influence of architecture, of iron-work, of lace-work, of the Chinese porcelains and stuffs, of Boule's inlays in wood, brass, ivory and lacquer, his designs for his cabinet-work, of many things, monumental, grave, and dignified, or, again, flippant and even silly.

During the whole of the period from Louis XII down to the beginning of the nineteenth century, leather was the material chiefly used for the bindings of printed books, with ornamentations in gold stamped on with many little tools or rolls brought to a heat, or with small pieces of varicolored leather, inlaid to form the pattern with the gold. Other materials had been used before and our binders could not have been entirely ignorant of them, - like the ivory covers of the Romans, the enameled metal covers of the Byzantines, the jeweled gold and silver covers of the Italians, the lacquered paper of the Persians, as well as the stamped pig-skin and vellum of the Middle Ages and the painted leather of the Italians.

So early as 1401, the binders of books were granted a charter by Charles VI to form a guild, which continued in active operation until 1791, although the gilders and forwarders separated, the gilders to form an association of their own in 1686. And even after the disruption of guilds, the encouragement to the art of binding was continued by the State after 1798, through what have been called "Assises

industrielles" or Expositions. Napoleon himself issued the order for the second exhibition in 1801.

The first important name in the list of French bookbinders is that of the Eves, Nicolas, who was binder to Henry III; Clovis, binder to Henry IV and Louis XIII; and Robert, son and successor of the latter. These men appeared upon the scene when the style of binding had already assumed racial characteristics in its natural development from the bindings of Italy introduced by Grolier, those adopted from manuscripts, and the early books of the first French printers. Their names are associated with the intricate and graceful branches of foliage, spirals, and flowers, evolved quite naturally from the curved lines and graceful fleurons of the earlier styles, which were interspersed on the field in the spaces between the interwoven curved and straight lines of the bands which now extended across the cover forming irregular shaped panels. Such designs are called "fanfare." Many of the most beautiful bindings of this kind are said to have come from their hands, just as the duplicating of the design of the front on the back cover and the harmonious designing of the back of the cover are ascribed to them.

Another name of importance, belonging to the latter half of Louis XIII's reign, is that of Le Gascon, a binder about whom almost nothing is known. To him are ascribed bindings with designs based upon the earlier forms, but executed with tools having dotted outlines, thus producing an effect that seems to show that their originator was strongly influenced by the laces of the day - and it was the day of wonderful laces. The finest bindings of this kind are those in which the field - the spaces between the bands - is filled quite solidly with filmy patterns, leaving the fillets themselves as if in relief. It is the custom of writers on this subject to call Le Gascon the greatest of binders.

A large family bearing the name of Padeloup became famous through the admirable work of Antoine Michel of the name, who lived during the first half of the eighteenth century, and who, with the Derômes, may be said to represent the best of the art of binding in the reign of Louis XIV. In Padeloup's bindings appear a new set of tools, quite different in character from those which preceded them. A new arrangement of the ornament, of the division of the space to be decorated, a freer use of leathers and colors, and, perhaps, most noticeable of all, an entire departure from the older forms of bands and fleurons characterize his work. It is customary to recite at this point a story of the appearance of a volume of Daphnis and Chloë by Longus, published in 1718, having on its covers a diaper formed of a mosaic of small pieces of varicolored leather, which marked an epoch in bookbinding. These diaper patterns in mosaic were favorites of Padeloup and his followers, many of them recalling the delightful volumes bound for Margaret of Valois in which the tooled branches of leaves divide the cover into panels, which have in their centres the daisy and lily emblems of this princess.

If Le Gascon may be called the finest of binders, Padeloup may be safely characterized as the most individual. He was an innovator, and he is distinguished for his departure from the conventional. Many bright-colored bindings ascribed to him, some bearing his name, with large conventionalized flowers, leaves, and other ornaments suggestive of the study of Chinese porcelain and stuffs, were as far as possible from what had preceded, and furnish the excuse for much of what has been done in the nineteenth century.

While adhering to the older styles in the main, Jacques Antoine Derôme, most distinguished of a long line of binders of this name, by his perfection of workmanship, his adaptation of the lace-like patterns of the previous century, made heavier and stiffer, and by his application of his ornament as a border to his covers, takes rank among the most important in the history of the art.

Many other names exist, some attached to the bindings which their bearers executed, but by far the greater number without such identification. Among them are Badier, Bradel, Boyer, Dubuisson, Duseuil, Le Monnier, Piqué, and Ruette, all following the styles of the times in which they lived.

In the reign of Louis XVI, prettiness was the key-note of the binder's art, exaggeratedly charming and graceful sometimes, in the hands of the best men, working in the traditions of Padeloup and Derôme, but like all of the arts of the period, rapidly declining from the beginning furnished by Padeloup's art. Inlays of lace, miniatures, colored paper, and tinsel covered the little almanacs and frippery diaries. In a period of decadence, these volumes, like the frivolities of the

last years of the tottering monarchy, came to an abrupt end.

With the nineteenth century came the rise and fall of styles in quick succession, following daintily in the footsteps of the more serious realities of political events. The styles of the Empire, the Restoration, the Second Empire, and the Republic crowded close upon one another. Napoleon's adoption of the classical style of decoration in his architecture and decorations, was followed by all of the arts and crafts, bookbinding among them, and the borders of frets, palmettes, garlands, trophies, and other Pompeian things, as translated by the architects, Percier and Fontaine, found their way, in the hands of the Bozérian brothers and their followers, to the covers of books. This was done, however, after a timid dallying with the graceful dots and floral sprays of the one really great English binder, Roger Payne, whose designs proved then, as ever since, tempting, but baffling of reproduction. Most of the bindings of the period are characterized by their straight-grained moroccos and their thin and careless tooling when compared with the work of Derôme and of the following decade.

Under the Restoration, Thouvenin, Purgold, and Simier were the most important binders. With heavier tools, more solid gilding, bastard fleurons, the wheel and heavy stamps, they produced original combinations of some merit, in which the predominating motives were adapted to the cover spaces with ingenuity. The culmination of their style expressed itself in architectural forms, Gothic traceries and rose windows, "à la cathedrale," a sympathetic expression of the Romantic literature of the time.

There came, about 1830, a reversion to type, in the hands of the most impeccable of binders, Trautz-Bauzonnet, and the tools of the Eves, Le Gascon, Padeloup, and Derôme once more found their way to the covers of books with a splendor of the most accomplished tooling, in the richest gold, the most sumptuous leathers and doublures (the insides of the covers) which have ever been seen. It was what Marius Michel has called it, a period of "archæological zeal." It was a period also of a new kind of collector-patron, of the societies which were now formed to print books, and to collect them. There sprang up a furore for collecting, for binding, and especially, for the bindings of Trautz, prices of which soared to fantastic figures, a furore which assumed such proportions