Normandy Book trades 1700-1789: B.

The world of the book in Lower Normandy 1700-1789

B. The legislative and regulatory framework

B1. Numerus clausus and the Code de la librairie

The structure of the book trade and printing in 18th-century Lower Normandy depended on a limitation on the number of masters permitted by the government. After the investigation of 1700-1701, the Privy Council decided by a decree of July 1704 to put a quota on the number of printers in the provinces. For Lower Normandy, this number was fixed at nine: four in Caen, two in Alençon and one in each of the cities of Bayeux, Coutances and Lisieux[96]. The decree of the Council of State of 31 March 1739 established the quota of printers at four for Caen, two for Alençon and one each for Avranches, Bayeux, Coutances and Lisieux. But it supressed printing in Saint-Lô, Sées, Valognes and Vire[97]. In 1759 a new decision of the Council ordered that the number of printers in the generality of Caen should be fixed at seven (four for the city of Caen and one for each of the localities of Avranches, Bayeux and Coutances) and suppressed the printing establishments still established in Saint-Lô and Valognes.

In addition to the number of printers, the central government oversaw all aspects of the business. The Édit du Roy pour le règlement des imprimeurs et libraires de Paris, registered by Parliament on 21 August 1686, and the Édit du Roy pour le règlement des relieurs et doreurs de livres, registered on 7 September 1686, served as a framework for the regulation of the trade in Paris and then in the provinces. To formulate a more definitive Code de la librairie by drawing up a text intended to amend the edict of 1686, the Chancellor of France, Henri-François d'Aguesseau, organized new discussions with the community of booksellers and printers in Paris in June 1717, followed by negotiations with the magistrates of the parliament of Paris between August 1720 and February 1722. Faced with the failure of these last discussions, the keeper of the privy seals Fleuriau d'Armenonville published the controversial text in the form of a Council decree on 28 February 1723. Two editions were published in Paris in 1723 and 1731. In Caen, in 1724, Antoine Cavelier printed extracts under the title: Règlement pour l’entrée des livres & estampes, des caracteres & de l’encre d’imprimerie[98]. A new edition was published the year when these regulations are extended to the whole kingdom, in 1744. It was once again Antoine Cavelier who printed it in Caen: Arrest du Conseil d’Estat du Roy qui ordonne que le reglement fait pour les imprimeurs et libraires de Paris sera executé dans tout le royaume, and in the same year Jean-Claude Pyron printed the complete text of the Règlement pour la librairie et imprimerie de Paris arrêté au Conseil d’État du Roy… le 28 fevrier 1723. In Alençon, Louis Malassis senior published it in the same year[99].. These regulations remained in effect until 1777.

But these regulations were often considered too strict in the provinces, including by the local authorities. During the local investigation into the book trade in 1768, for example, the intendant's sub-delegate asked for a printer to be allowed in Saint-Lô, a town that had been without one since the 1759 judgment, saying that would be "useful in wartime", a good argument for a border province, facing England[100].

B2. Certificates and other documents required for admission as a printer

Like the number of places, the qualifications of printers were also governed by central government and corporate regulations. To be accepted as a master bookseller or printer, in principle you had to be "congruent in the Latin language" and be able to read Greek. After passing an apprenticeship certificate for four years, it was necessary to serve at least three years as a journeyman. Then the candidate had to appear before the Chambre Syndicale, armed with the apprenticeship certificate, certificates from the various booksellers or printers with whom we had worked as a journeyman, as well as a certificate from the rector of the university or the principal of the local college, certifying knowledge of Latin and the ability to read Greek. A certificate of catholicity and good conduct was also necessary. Thus François-Bonaventure Mistral, a journeyman printer who, in 1767 applied for the position vacated by Marie Maillard, widow of Jacques Aunay du Roqueray in Lisieux, produced in 1767 an authentication by notarial act of his apprenticeship contract signed with the Marseilles printer Dominique Sibié on 30 April 1748, a journeyman's certificate without location details, a baptism certificate in Marseille on 14 July 1731, a certificate of studies dated 17 September 1765 issued by the director of the college in Marseille and a certificate of good living and and conduct written by the bishop of Lisieux on 10 August 1767[101].

If several contenders applied for a printer's position that had become vacant, a competition organized before the Chambre Syndicale was necessary. But the decision of the keeper of the seals was compulsory before the decree of the Privy Council was released[102].

B3. Local regulation

Even if the regulation of the book trades was more highly developed in the 18th century in Paris, or rather in Versailles, daily professional affairs were managed locally and were the responsibility of the Chambre Syndicale in Caen as well as the police jurisdiction of each city concerned.

B3.1. The community of trades

Local regulation of printing and the book trade in Lower Normandy was undertaken at the beginning of the 18th century by the community of Caen, the other cities in the region having too few masters. According to the local survey of 1730, the community of master printers and booksellers of Caen existed "from very old times". Its original titles, statutes and regulations had been lost. The parliament of Normandy in Rouen granted new ones and, by decree of 12 December 1612, allocated the printers and booksellers of Caen to the bailiff of Caen: new statutes were then established and adopted by decision of 15 January 1613.

The meetings of the community took place in the "chapter of the PP. Cordeliers", each year, the day of Saint-Jean-Porte-Latine. After the mass and the distribution of the blessed bread, the election - or re-election, "because of the few subjects" - took place of two guards. These, normally a printer and a bookseller, were sworn in before the lieutenant general of police of Caen[103].

In 1764, the royal inquiry noted that the masters formed a community now governed by the Parisian regulations of 1723, which had been extended to the entire kingdom in 1744. The officers of the community consisted of a syndic and an assistant elected every two years. Pierre Chalopin and Charles-Joseph Le Tellier were the officers in office at the time[104]. The inspection of the printing works was carried out by the syndic and his assistant. As for books arriving from outside the region, customs and courier clerks were supposed to hand them over any of the professionals who requested them.

B3.2. The Chambre Syndicale in Caen

On 30 August 1777, the Chambre royal et syndicale de la librairie et imprimerie de Caen was established by decree of the Privy Council. This body became the administrative centre for all the booksellers and printers in the cities of the region, subject to the same regulations as those of the city of Caen where the headquarters were established. The office of this body was composed of a trustee and four assistants, under the supervision of a commissioner of the Council. Its sessions were held every Tuesday and Friday. Until 1787, the Chambre Syndicale had the address n° 19 rue de la Geôle, and from 1788 n° 6 on rue Saint-Laurent. The list of officers is known to us for the period 1777-1790:

• Commissaire du Conseil, inspecteur près la chambre : 1777-1787 (Le) Paulmier ; 1788-1790 Fouquet
• Inspecteur adjoint : 1784-1787 Fouquet ; 1788-1790 Cliquet
• Inspecteur de la librairie à la douane : 1788-1790 Le Romain
• Secrétaire : 1787-1790 Yon
• Syndics : 1777-1779 Poisson ; 1780-1784 Le Baron l’aîné ; 1785-1786 Pyron ; 1787 Caillot ; 1788-1790 Chalopin fils
• Adjoints : 1777-1779 Le Baron ; 1779 Pyron ; 1779-1784 Le Roux ; 1779-1784 Cailleau ; 1780-1784 Chalopin ; 1780-1790 Postel ; 1785-1786 Chalopin fils ; 1785-1786 Manoury le jeune ; 1785-1787 Morel fils ; 1788-1790 Morin ; 1787-1790 Poisson ; 1787-1790 Le Roy
• Officiers pour les visites des bibliothèques par quartier : janvier et juillet, 1785-1786, Postel, Morel fils ; avril et octobre, 1785-1786, Chalopin fils, Manoury le jeune.

In 1780 nine cities came under he Chambre Syndicale: Caen, Alençon, Avranches, Bayeux, Coutances, Lisieux, Valognes, L’Aigle and Honfleur. By 1787, eleven other localities were added: Argentan, Bernay, Carentan, Cherbourg, Falaise, Granville, Mortagne, Mortain, Saint-Lô, Sées and Vire.

The body had several responsibilities. To be admitted as a bookseller or printer, it was necessary to appear before the Chambre Syndicale, provided with the necessary documentation. If several contenders presented themselves for a vacant position as a printer, a competition had to be organized in front of the Chambre.

The trustee was also responsible for "visiting" the libraries for sale, and the Chambre maintained the register of royal privileges and permissions to print, "permissions simples". Unfortunately, this register is now lost. By article 90 of the regulations of 1723, "bales relating to the book trade, printing or engravings" arriving from outside also had to be brought to the Chambre for inspection[105].

B4. The system of privileges and permissions

Printers were forbidden to print any works without having simple permissions or Great Seal privileges, under the penalties imposed by the regulations. They were required, under section 21 of the Council's judgment of 30 August 1777, to communicate to the library inspector, a week before going to press, the title of the work and the permission or privilege by which it was covered. Those who wished to obtain simple permissions had to give the inspector a copy of the work they intended to print, with the declaration of the quantity of copies they wanted to produce, so that their request could be sent to the regulators of the book trade. Registration in the Caen Chambre Syndicale was in principle undertaken after that in the Paris Chambre.

The privilege system found strong support among the capital's book trades, which benefited from the majority of these privileges and their renewals. But, in Lower Normandy as elsewhere, this system aroused great dissatisfaction because it was based on the almost complete exclusion of the provincial booksellers. In the great investigation of 1777, entitled État général des imprimeurs du royaume, in the section "Observations relating to the royal printers in the province of Normandy" there are objections to "the low number of titles that go to press due to the numerous privileges protecting the booksellers of Paris"[106]. Some years later, in 1789, the Cahier des plaintes et demandes des imprimeurs et libraires de la ville d’Alençon proclaimed "que les privilèges exclusifs pour l’impression de tous les titres en général sont extrêmement nuisibles au commerce […] Les imprimeurs demandent [entre autres] que les seigneurs évêques soient dépouillés de ces privilèges"[107].

B4.1. Privileges

The privileges and permissions granted "before the seal" (in other words before being sealed at the Great Chancellery) gave rise to the collection of a tax. We know the amount of the latter after the reforms of 1777: in 1781, 36 l. 12s. for a privilege, and 7 l. 2 s. for simple permission.

However, it was possible to obtain a privilege covering a whole series of works. Thus in 1753 the Caen printer and bookseller Pierre Chalopin was granted a privilege for no less than 24 little devotional books:

Contrat de l’Homme avec Dieu, Petit Office de Notre Dame de la Délivrande, L’Innocence reconnuë, Recueil nouveau de plusieurs cantiques, Dévotion du Calvaire à l’usage des missions, Le Petit Office du nom & couronne de la Vierge Marie, l’Office de Notre-Dame à l’usage de Rome, Recueil de cantiques spirituels, Conduite pour entendre la sainte messe, Instruction pour la confrairie du S. Nom de J[esus], La Vie admirable de S. Alexis, La Clef du Paradis, l’Office de la Vierge Marie avec le Pseautier de David, L’Ancienne Fondation de la chapelle de Notre Dame de la Délivrande, les Colloques du Calvaire, Catéchisme avec les instructions, Heures nouvelles dédiées au Roi, Cantiques à l’usage des missions des Peres Jésuites, Doctrine chrétienne en forme de dialogue, Cantiques de Judith, Cantiques spirituels de l’ame dévote, les Chansons de S. Jacques, Heures nouvelles dédiées à Madame la Princesse, Instructions pour les confraires du Rosaire.

This particularly verbose royal privilege is printed at length in the 1755 edition of Contrat de l’Homme avec Dieu[108]. There we learn that on 9 March 1753, Chalopin received the authorisation to "imprimer lesdits ouvrages autant de fois que bon lui semble, & de les vendre, faire vendre & débiter par tout notre royaume pendant le tems de trois années consécutives, à compter du jour de la date des présentes : faisons défenses a tous imprimeurs-libraires & autres personnes de quelque qualité & condition qu’elles soient d’en introduire d’impression étrangere dans aucun lieu de notre obéissance". But there are conditions: "à la charge que ces présentes seront enregistrées tout an long sur le registre de la communauté des imprimeurs-libraires de Paris dans trois mois de la date d’icelles : que l’impression desdits livres sera faite dans notre royaume & non ailleurs : en bon papier & beaux caracteres conformément à la feuille imprimée & attachée pour modele sous le contre scel des présentes, que l’impétrant se conformera en tout aux réglemens de la librairie & notamment a celui du 10 avril 1725, qu’avant de les exposer en vente, le manuscrit ou imprimé qui auront servi de copie à l’impression dudit ouvrage, seront remis dans le même état où l’approbation y aura été donnée, &c."

And such formulas are found at the time in many works published both in Lower Normandy and everywhere else in France.

B4.2. Permissions simples

The simple permissions which enter into force in the region, as in the whole of the kingdom, by virtue of the decisions of the Privy Council of 30 August 1777 also have their formulas. Another edition of Chalopin can provide an example[109]. After a preamble, the terms of the permission are:

"Nous permettons au Sr Chalopin imprimeur-libraire à Caen, de faire une édition de l’ouvrage qui a pour titre : Formulaire de prière, pour passer saintement la journée, à l’usage des pensionnaires et des Ursulines, laquelle édition sera tirée a 3 000 exemplaires, en un volume, forma [sic] in-12, & sera finie dans le délai de six mois, a la charge dudit Sr. Chalopin d’avertir l’inspecteur de la chambre syndicale de Caen, du jour ou l’on commencera l’impression dudit ouvrage, au désir de l’article XXI de l’arrêt du Conseil du 30 août 1777, portant suppression & création de différentes chambres syndicales : de faire ladite édition absolument conforme à celle de Liège, d’en remettre un exemplaire pour la Bibliothèque du Roi, aux mains des officiers de la chambre syndicale de Caen, d’imprimer la présente permission à la fin du livre, & de la faire enregistrer dans deux mois pour tout délai, sur les registres de ladite chambre syndicale de Caen : le tout à peine de nullité.
Donné à Paris le 12 Juillet 1783
Signé, Neville, par M. le directeur général
Signé, De Sancy, secrétaire général.
Registré sur le registre de la chambre syndicale des imprimeurs-libraires de la ville de Caen, fol. 50 verso, conformément aux arrêts du Conseil, du 30 août 1777. À Caen le 1er. août 1783. Signé, P. Le Baron, syndic."

Between 1779 and 1789, printers and booksellers in Lower Normandy obtained around 102 simple permissions among the 753 titles listed by Robert L. Dawson in the permission registers[110]. For the most part, these were devotional texts, but also, for example, works by Voltaire, recorded several times by Gilles Le Roy de Caen, who, with 30 simple permissions to his name (which however did not result in an actual impression). The other beneficiaries in Caen were the Chalopin family (22 permissions between 1783 and 1788), the Poisson family (12 permissions from 1784 to 1788) and Jean-Claude Pyron (2 permissions in 1785-1786). In Coutances, Gilles Joubert was awarded 8 between 1780 and 1785, in Lisieux François-Bonaventure Mistral obtained 4 between 1780 and 1787, in Bayeux the Nicolle family 16 between 1784 and 1787, and in Avranches François Le Court 5 between 1779 and 1784 and François Quesnel one in 1785.

B4.3. Police permissions

The so-called police permission is necessary for more ephemeral printed matter such as posters, addresses, play-bills, songs, "relations" and generally pamphlets, that is to say works not exceeding two sheets (or gatherings).

Antoine-Jean Nicolle's widow's printing press in Bayeux put to press Le sieur Bernard Duclos, de l’Académie royale d’ecriture, a l’honneur de prévenir le public qu’il va ouvrir une pension…, a poster preserved in the médiathèque de Bayeux and which carries the "permis d’imprimer & afficher, ce 31 mars 1787" signed by the local "juge de police", Le Vanier des Vauxiers.

B4.4. Books without mention of permission or privilege

The decree of the Council of 13 March 1730 mentions certain categories of publications which do not need a privilege. These same categories are mentioned in a Privy Council decision of 1786: they are "des A. B. C., des almanachs sur lesquels il n’y a point de privilèges, des petits livres d’heures & de prières, non excédant deux feuilles d'impression, de caractère de cicero"[111]. Among the impressions which do not require privilege, it is necessary in particular to add the factums or legal memories, provided however that these bear the signature of a lawyer or a lawyer.

B5. Censorship and approval

Before Pierre Chalopin printed the new edition of the Contrat de l’Homme avec Dieu par le saint baptême, corrected by Roger Daon, he had to submit the text to royal censorship, even if the author happened to be Saint John Eudes and the editor a priest from the same congregation. Two approvals were produced for this edition. One, signed "Boudin, doctor of the Sorbonne & parish priest of Saint Martin" and dated from Caen on 8 June 1743, affirms after a long expression of enthusiasm: "Cet ouvrage […] porte son approbation avec lui, par la piété sçavante & connue de son auteur. Je le trouve digne d’être lu, publié & imprimé." These words of approval had already served for an edition printed by Jean Poisson in 1743[112]. The text of another approval is shorter: "J’ai lu, par ordre de monseigneur le chancelier, ce livre imprimé, qui a pour titre : Contrat de l’Homme avec Dieu par le saint baptême, par le R. P. Eudes, instituteur de la congrégation de Jésus et Marie, dont on peut permettre une nouvelle édition, en Sorbonne le 14 février 1754. De Marcilly." [113]

B6. Legal deposit

The permission simple of the book Epistres & Evangiles des dimanches et festes de toute l’année (Caen, Louis-Jean Poisson, 1789), delivered in Paris on 22 December 1788 and registered in Caen 2 january 1789, informs us of the requirements for legal deposit during the last years of the Ancien Régime: the printer had to "remettre, conformément à l’arret du Conseil du 16 avril 1785, neuf exemplaires aux mains des officiers de la chambre syndicale de Caen"[114].

According to the Almanach de la librairie of Antoine Perrin (1781), these copies were split as follows: one forthe censor who had given his approval, three for the Bibliothèque du Roi, one for the chancellor of France, one for the holder of the Privy Seal and three for the Chambre Syndicale in Caen[115].

B7. Delays in procedure

All these procedures represented formidable obstacles for the printer or the author wishing to see a work published. Whether printer or author, he was first confronted with the need to obtain a privilege or a permission in Paris, then to be assigned a censor and to await his approval, possibly to comply with his requests for modification, finally, the there was the obligation to register with the Chambres Syndicales both in Paris and Caen. For the printer working in Normandy, at a distance from the capital involving a trip of several days, this often involved a considerable delay.

Take the example already mentioned of the new edition of the Contrat de l’Homme avec Dieu par le saint baptême, by saint Jean Eudes, corrected and enlarged by Roger Daon, a previous edition of which had appeared in 1743. The privilege was obtained 29 March 1753, the approval by the Sieur de Marcilly, teacher of the congregation of Jesus and Mary, was given at the Sorbonne on 14 February 1754, the title was recorded in Paris on 2 April 1754 and in Caen on 11 May 1754, and the new edition finally appeared in 1755 - a delay of almost two years in all.

B8. Local variations in applying legislation

Local factors can distort the application of the various regulations. Thus in the general observations for the city of Caen, during the investigation of 1764, we learn that there is "no abuse in this city", but that the provisions of the regulation of 1720 are not however not exactly applied, local circumstances not allowing it. For example, there is no Chambre Syndicale due to the small number of printers. The same trustees being returned frequently to office, they are lenient with each other. It is therefore recommended that the inspection of books entering Caen be entrusted, "as in Rouen", to the lieutenant general of the city police[116].

Sometimes local authorities can tolerate a situation that is not validated by central government law. Julien Hermant, for example, worked as a printer-bookseller and bookbinder in Saint-Lô from 1738 in succession to Jacques Le Baron. Although the printing press was abolished in Saint-Lô by decree of the Council of 31 March 1739, the usefulness of this printer remained indisputable, especially during troop movements. So his activity continued, notably in the service of the college, and this undoubtedly with the tacit agreement of the local authorities. But on 12 May 1759 a new judgment of the Privy Council ordered that the judgment of 31 March 1739 should be carried out "à peine de confiscation et de 500 livres d’amende", and Hermant henceforth only acted as a bookseller[117].

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References
[96]. Bibliothèque nationale de France, ms. fr. 22065, pièce 63, et fr. 22129, fol. 45 ; AD Calvados, C 2885.
[97]. Bibliothèque nationale de France, ms. fr. 22129, fol. 111 ; AD Calvados, C 2885.
[98]. Girard (1998) 2416.
[99]. Girard (1998) 4407, 4444, pour l’édition caennaise. Un exemplaire de l’édition d’Alençon est conservé à la Bibliothèque municipale de Versailles.
[100]. AD Calvados, C 2886.
[101]. AN, V6 1028, n° 11.
[102]. Almanach de la librairie (1781).
103]. AD Calvados, C 2886/3.
[104]. AD Calvados, C 2887/4.
[105]. Almanach de la ville et généralité de Caen… 1787 (Caen, Pierre-Jean-Aimé Chalopin, 1786) et pour d’autres années.
[106]. Bibliothèque nationale de France, ms. fr. 21832, fol. 1-22.
[107]. AD Orne, 70B 96.
[108]. Girard (1998) 5510.
[109]. Formulaire de prières, pour passer saintement la journée, Caen, P. Chalopin, 1784. Cf. Girard (1998) 8416.
[110]. Dawson (1992) ; Bibliothèque nationale de France, ms. fr. 22018 et 22019.
[111]. Arrêt du Conseil d’État du Roi, du 10 juillet 1786 (Caen, Gilles Le Roy, 1786). Cf. Girard 8604. Cet arrêt interdit à toute personne autre que les libraires et imprimeurs de faire commerce de livres à Douvres-la-Délivrande, en exceptant toutefois de cette défense les livrets de moins de deux feuilles d’impression ci-dessus mentionnés.
[112]. Girard (1998) 4307.
[113]. Girard (1998) 5509.
[114]. Girard (1998) 8918.
[115]. Almanach de la librairie (1781).
[116]. AD Calvados, C 2887/4.
[117]. Bibliothèque nationale de France, ms. fr. 22177, 151.

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This page last updated 26 June 2020.