Licensing Loyalty: Printers, Patrons, and the State in Early Modern France

314 Pages·2011·6.46 MB·English

by  Jane McLeod

licensing loyalty
The Penn State Series in the History of the Book
James L. W. West III, General Editor
Peter Burke, The Fortunes of the “Courtier”:
The European Reception of Castiglione’s“Cortegiano”
Roger Burlingame, Of Making Many Books:
A Hundred Years of Reading, Writing, and Publishing
James M. Hutchisson, The Rise of Sinclair Lewis, 1920–1930
Julie Bates Dock, ed.,
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wall-paper”
and the History of Its Publication and Reception: A Critical Edition
and Documentary Casebook
John Williams, ed., Imaging the Early Medieval Bible
James G. Nelson, Publisher to the Decadents:
Leonard Smithers in the Careers of Beardsley, Wilde, Dowson
Ezra Greenspan, George Palmer Putnam: Representative American Publisher
Pamela Selwyn, Everyday Life in the German Book Trade:
Friedrich Nicolai as Bookseller and Publisher in the Age of Enlightenment
David R. Johnson, Conrad Richter: A Writer’s Life
David Finkelstein, The House of Blackwood:
Author-Publisher Relations in the Victorian Era
Rodger L. Tarr, ed., As Ever Yours:
The Letters of Max Perkins and Elizabeth Lemmon
Randy Robertson,
Censorship and Conflict in Seventeenth-Century England:
The Subtle Art of Division
Catherine M. Parisian, ed., The First White House Library:
A History and Annotated Catalogue
jane mcleod
Licensing
Loyalty
printers, patrons, and
the state in early modern france
The Pennsylvania State University Press
University Park, Pennsylvania
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McLeod, Jane.
Licensing loyalty : printers, patrons, and the state in early
modern France / Jane McLeod.
p. cm.
(The Penn State series in the history of the book)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary: “Explores the evolution of the idea that the rise of
print culture was a threat to the royal government of eighteenth-
century France. Argues that French printers did much to foster
this view as they negotiated a place in the expanding bureaucratic
apparatus of the state”—Provided by publisher.
isbn978-0-271-03768-4(acid-free paper)
1. Printing—France—History.
2. Printers—Certification—France—History.
3. Printers—France—Social conditions—History.
4. Book industries and trade—Political aspects—France—History.
5. Censorship—France—History.
I. Title.
z144.m39 2011
070.50944—dc22
2010039081
Copyright © 2011The Pennsylvania State University
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Published by The Pennsylvania State University Press,
University Park, PA 16802–1003
It is the policy of The Pennsylvania State University Press
to use acid-free paper. Publications on uncoated stock
satisfy the minimum requirements of American National
Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Material, ansi z39.48–1992.
This book is printed on Natures Natural, which contains
50% post-consumer waste.
this bookis dedicated to my mother
and the memory of my father.

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1 The Early History of Printers in Provincial France, 1470–1660 10
2 The Vicissitudes of a Royal Decree:
Enforcing the October 1667Order in Council Regulating
Printers in the Provinces 37
3 The Royal Council Takes Control:
The 1701Inquiry and the Bureau de la Librairie 68
4 The Purges:
The Enforcement of Printer Quotas in the Provinces After 1704 97
5 Arguments Offered by Printers in Petitions for Licenses,
1667–1789 125
6 Patronage and Bureaucracy Intersect:
Five Case Studies in the Reign of Louis XVI 147
7 Behind the Rhetoric:
The Social Position and Politics of Provincial Printers, 1750–1789 179
Conclusion 211
Appendix A: Printers’ Wealth in the Eighteenth Century 217
Appendix B: Some Licensed Provincial Printers Involved in the
Clandestine Book Trade, 1750–89, by Town 227
Notes 233
Bibliography 275
Index 293

Acknowledgments
All the people who helped make this book possible are too numerous to name.
I would like to thank all the archivists and librarians in Paris, Bordeaux, Lyon,
Rouen, Dijon, and Rennes who assisted me—and to give special mention
to those at the Archives départementales de la Gironde, whose generous sup-
port went beyond all reasonable expectations. Special thanks are also due to
the Interlibrary Loan Department at Brock University for patiently handling
many orders and to the coordinator of the History Department, Heidi Klose,
for technical assistance of all sorts.
I am grateful to John Bosher for inspiring my interest in French institutional
history and for guiding the early stages of this work. Some of the historians
whose ideas pervade the book also answered many questions and gave ad-
vice: Roger Chartier, Robert Darnton, Albert Hamscher, Elizabeth Eisenstein,
Ray mond Birn, and Julian Swann. Many others offered their time, expertise,
and moral support: Pierre Reynard, Alan Arthur, Howard Brown, Donald
Sutherland, Raymonde Litalien, Jeremy Hayhoe, Thierry Rigogne, Stephen
Auerbach, Stephen Clay, Eric Wauter, and Jacob Soll. My greatest debt is to
Timothy Le Goff for his knowledge of eighteenth-century France and his
willingness to pass it on.
I would also like to express my gratitude to my friends and colleagues at
Brock University for their help and encouragement over many years and to
my editor Laura Reed-Morrisson for countless good suggestions. Research for
this book was generously funded by the Social Science and Humanities
Research Council of Canada, by Brock University, and by Brock University’s
Humanities Research Institute.
Very warm and affectionate thanks go to my husband, Hans Hansen, and
to our daughters, Madeleine and Alice.