Page:Historic printing types, a lecture read before the Grolier club of New York, January 25, 1885, with additions and new illustrations; by De Vinne, Theodore Low, 1828-1914; Grolier Club.djvu/41

 FRENCH TYPE-FOUNDERS. 37 music types, and for the Oriental types lie made for Le Jay's Polyglot Bible. His foundry was maintained by descendants for four generations. Pierre Moreau, who began his work in 1640, Jean Cot Foamier, tome ii, p. (began 1670), and Pierre Esclassant (began 1666) were also xxvi. etseq. noteworthy as type-founders, but they made no changes in Eoman letters. In all French type-foundries, the punch- cutters had most to. do in making types for foreign lan- guages. The modern investigator is astonished at the number and merit of the many faces of Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, Turkish, and Orientals made during the xvith and xvnth centuries, many of them coming from petty or little-known French foundries. In this field Dutch foundries were the only competitors, for type-founding in Italy and Germany had declined as rapidly as it began, and English type-foundries were then of no importance. The "King's Eoman" (Eomain du roi) is one of the his- torical types of France. In 1693, Louis xiv., wishing to P. xx. establish a printing-office in the Louvre, and to do it in a royal way, requested the Academy of Sciences to aid him in his undertaking. M. Jaugeon, a member of that body, was instructed by the society to devise let- ters of faultless form, and to make characteristic and original faces for the royal office. He seems to have studied Champ Fleuri to purpose, for in time he pub- lished a series of engraved plates, full of geometrical Tue notions of M. Jaugeon. figures, in which he showed the fruit of his teaching