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The objective of the 1667 order banning all new printers was to raise the level of education and training of French printers, permitting them to produce high-quality books rivaling those of other European countries, especially the Netherlands. By 1704 this line of thinking had undergone considerable development : well-trained, well-educated, and wealthy printers would be loyal to the king,whereas marginal men were a threat.How did this happen? The early orders in council simply banned newcomers and required that printers obtain authorization before setting up business. However, as printers began to seek the requisite approval from Versailles, they employed the legal training and rhetorical skills of lawyers to produce petitions justifying their professional existence to the authorities. In them they defined relevant criteria, made the arguments they considered legitimate and persuasive,and generally constructed the image of the competent and loyal printer that they thought the king should be seeking.As they summarized printers’arguments and provided acceptances, refusals, or comments, royal officials entered into this dialogue, further contributing to developing ideas about good printers. The arguments in the petitions studied here were the product of a cross-fertilizing, three-way exchange of ideas between printers, the lawyers who put these ideas to paper, and the royal officials who reacted to them. The early orders in council that brought in successive degrees of licensing (1667, 1700, 1704) provided no guidance about the criteria required for royal authorization. Consequently, the first printers to apply drew upon their own ingenuity and experience and came up with a wide range of criteria.1 Some printers used economic arguments in their petitions. One very early and very 5 arguments offered by printers in petitions for licenses, 1667–1789 simple economic argument made by a perplexed candidate was that licenses needed to be granted because, if they were not, then neither printers nor the book trade could thrive. Other economic arguments included more complex statements of the importance of the domestic and foreign printing trades and the need to keep book prices down. A group of printers in Limoges said that unless they were given licenses, they would not be able to pay taxes. Some thought that they needed proof of activity in their trade; others referred to the important printing that they were doing for bishops, intendants, and the courts.Their reputations,or that of their fathers,as men of honor and integrity were underscored by some. Two candidates offered statements of their political views: Nicolas Denoux in Châlons stated that he had set up business by the“consent of the people,”and several in Limoges stated that they were established “on the strength of public liberty.” One offered to redouble his wishes for the king’s health and prosperity if he were to be given a license. Evidence of earlier royal favor bestowed on their families was thought helpful, as were appeals to sympathy, which stressed how their families would be ruined if they did not receive licenses. The diversity of these arguments reflects an equal diversity in the circumstances and political sophistication of provincial printers in the seventeenth century. Many of the first petitioners for licenses employed a range of arguments as they struggled to defend their livelihoods when challenged by those wanting to enforce the 1667 ban.We can reconstruct those made in 1669 by Claude Grinet when Sebastien Hyp, the printer in Vendôme, invoked the 1667 ban to close him down. Grinet pointed out that he was a very competent printer and had married the local printer’s widow.Grinet and his father had both been admitted as master printers in Rouen and he had apprenticed in Paris to the well-known printer Coignard. Through his wife he had inherited printing equipment and books. He possessed a royal copyright to print Le Chretien intérieur and provided favorable testimony regarding the edition he published. He was careful to convey that he was someone who obeyed laws, defending himself against a charge of pirating and noting that he had given the required copies of his book to the king and chancellor. In addition, he made an economic argument, claiming that prices would be lower if the single printer in Vendôme had some competition, an opinion shared by several principal residents of the town.2 Grinet and others drew some of their ideas from printers’ and booksellers’ guild statutes of the seventeenth century. The principal of these—Paris, 1618 and...

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