Second printing center of the Ancient Regime french kingdom, Lyon glorious period was the sixteenth century, yet the most studied and well known. The following centuries are generally considered as a wasting period, aggravated by the preponderance of the parisian book-trade. This opinion has to be shaded. It has been our purpose since 1992, through a prosographical investigation, taking part in a national inquiry dedicated to the Bookfolk. Our aim is to publish, as soon as possible, our biographical material, and a monography about the printing and book-trade world of Lyon in the 18th century. This paper would simply present our first results. If they do not scatter the impression of general waste, they prove a stirring life.
I) The inquiry
Our investigation is part of a national inquiry called "Gens du livre" = Bookfolk in the 18th century. It is directed by the Institut d'Histoire moderne et contemporaine of the National scientific research center (CNRS). Frédéric Barbier has dealt with the North of France, this region will be the first volume of a sery to be published by Klincksieck. In the foreword he gave to this first volume, Robert Darnton has pointed out what he considers new trails for the history of the book2
. Frédéric Barbier and Sabine Juratic are now working on Paris. Lyon will be the inquiry third part. Other researches have begun on Montpellier and Normandy. The work consists in gathering as much as possible informations on the private and professionnal life of people dealing with book printing and trade. In the case of Lyon, we have included the revolutionnary years, which were so awful for the city. Nowadays, we have gathered informations on 683 persons. They are distributed as it follows :
These 683 people include 618 men (90,48%), 61 widows (8,93%),
and only 4 alone women (0,59%).
It will not be possible to publish all the biographical notices
on paper, but all of them will some day be available on the world
wide web. The gathered sample may appear to be important. In fact,
we have met border problems between some crafts, and we have chosen
to gather as much as possible informations, though we might some
day be obliged to restrict the studied corpus. Our archival examinations
took place in Lyon, Paris, and Neuchâtel. In Lyon, we have
worked in the town archives, in the departemental archives (especially
for parish registers, justice files, and notorial papers). We
have also worked, at the town library, on local almanachs and
newspapers, the local printed production, and the library card
indexes. In Paris, we have worked mostly at the national Library
and at the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, on the Anisson collection,
on the Bastille archives, and on masonic lodges papers. Lastly,
we also have examined the archives of the Neuchâtel typographical
Society, the well-known STN, in search for correspondants from
Lyon, after 17693. These papers have given
us plenty of precise informations, and advertising materials,
unknown to the french archives visited.
But some groups remain hard to study. Such is for instance the
case of printers companions, an always stirring group. They only
appear occasionnaly in workshops inventories, or for a marriage
contract. Nevertheless, we have discovered an affair which happened
in 1718-1719. Eight companions were condemned to a fifty pounds
fine for having created a secret and forbidden brotherhood4. A list of forty one names was seized, but
we are far from the sixteenth century strikes studied by Nathalie
Davies.
II) A closed world
Since the 15th and until the 19th century, Lyon printing and book-trade
has been concentrated in the heart of the city, in the "presqu'île",
the peninsula between the Saône River and the Rhône,
especially in the "Rue Mercière", and in the
streets of its immediate neighbourhood : rue Tupin, Halles de
la Grenette, Quai de Retz... Today, each building of the Rue Mercière
houses a restaurant. In the Ancient Regime, there were the printers
and the booksellers workshops. In the storeys were the printed
leaves warehouses, the binders rooms, the masters and companions
lodgings. All around them, were settled the neighbouring crafts
: papermakers, typecasters, companions of all kinds... In this
little world, erybody lived closer to his colleagues and competitors,
from a generation to another.
The workshops number had been reduced by the royal authority.
Since 1739, the printers have been 12, and the booksellers 24.
One of the typical features of the 18th century is the partition
between booksellers and binders. Since a royal decision of august
1686, the two guilds had to separate, and binders were no more
authorised to sell books, as they did before. In Lyon, this separation
happened in 1717, but til the end of the century, the binders
used to call themselves "libraire-relieur-doreur", in
spite of the legislation. The opposition between the two professions
lasted through the whole century. The binders guild composed of
an average of 50 masters and widows owning a workshop, about 25
masters and companions working for the previous workshop owners.
But there were almost 60 masters sons, waiting for a place, and
often obliged to take another job.
In a 1767 memorandum5, the binders wrote :
"La politique des relieurs, disent les libraires, est
de se maintenir en petit nombre pour avoir lieu de se faire augmenter
les prix...
La plupart des maîtres n'ont que très peu ou point
d'ouvrage quelques uns ont été obligés par
cette raison de changer de métier, d'autres enfin (n')
ayant d'autres ressources que dans ce talent, sont sur le point
d'abandonner la ville pour se réfugier ailleurs..."
The binders used to limit the recruiting. In 1702, they were
authorised to take no apprentice. This opportunity was renewed
in 1708, 1717, 1719, and 1721. In 1723, each master was obliged
to take an apprentice. Then it was said that the binders had not
taken any apprentice for forty five years. But it is impossible
to prove such an assertion. Yet in 1747, the booksellers requested
this decision application, which is a sign that it was not really
applied.
All through these years, the booksellers denounced the binders'attitude
:
"... avidité de quelques maîtres relieurs
qui voudroient imposer la loi aux marchands libraires et les
obliger par la disette des ouvriers à payer les ouvrages
beaucoup au-delà de leur juste valeur..."
In fact, the closing was the same by the printers and booksellers.
Since the statute of 1676, they had been obliged to a four years
apprenticeship, and to four other years of companioning in Lyon,
before obtaining a mastership. Their guild was directed by a "syndic"
and two assistants ("adjoints"), elected every two years.
Their number had been reduced in 1739, and the places were reserved
to local masters'sons. The workshops transmission obeyed to elaborated
wedding and inheritance strategies. In 17016,
there were 32 printers and booksellers, 32 simple booksellers,
47 binders, 184 companions and 24 apprentices. In 17637,
the printers were 12 and the booksellers 24, the companions about
90. In 1789, they were only 13 active printers and 14 booksellers.The
number of binders is unknown in 1763 and 1789.
Such a situation consequence was the continuance of dynasties
through the whole century. Among the most important may be quoted
the Bruysets, the Périsses, the Duplains, the Molins, the
Baritels... and others. Some of them, among the most important,
belonged to the freemasonry8 . Jean-André
Périsse-Duluc, who had been "syndic" from 1776
to 1790, and became deputy to the General Estates, belonged to
the sect of the "Illuminés martinistes de Lyon",
and was very close to Jean-Baptiste Willermoz9,
whith whom he exchanged an important correspondance, now at Lyon
municipal Library10.
The Revolution allowed a renewal : seven masters (a quarter of
the whole) were killed during the siege or in the following executions.
Newcomers settled in the town. They came from little cities of
the neighbourhood : Bellay, Bourg-en-Bresse, Vienne, Montélimar...
Of the 15 printing workshops created between 1789 and 1799, 6
diseapeared after a few years. It was the same for 4 of the 12
new booksellers. At the beginning of the 19th century, the situation
was almost the same than before : 16 printers and 10 booksellers.
The number of presses is also significant. In 1701, they were
at least 90, and the most important workshop, owned by Valfray,
had six of them. In 1763, the presses were only 51, of which about
30 were working. At the top, Aimé Delaroche owned 11 of
them.
Another instance of this closing may be pointed about the relationships
between Lyon and foreign countries. In the XVIth century, the
city was an important international market, well-known for its
fairs and connections with Italy, Spain, Germany and Switzerland.
A century later, the fairs had declined, but a few booksellers,
like the Cardons, still had an important foreign market. In his
1698 Mémoire sur la généralité de
Lyon, the local intendant11, wrote that only
two firms, which names are not given, had a foreign trade, especially
with Spain and spanish colonies. 1748 was the year of the bankruptcy
of the last firm which had such an activity. It belonged to the
three Deville brothers : Jean, Pierre and Roch. Roch was settled
in Madrid where he retired. Pierre became the king's printer Valfray's
clicker ("prote"). Jean remained bookseller in Lyon.
Among their debtors, 62 lived in the iberic peninsula : 12 in
Madrid, 6 in Barcelonna, 8 in Lisbona, 6 in Coïmbra. We also
know two mexican debtors12. In fact, and
despite a heavy customs legislation, the main relationships linked
Lyon to Spain, Italy and Switzerland. But the main part of the
exchanges was made with french printers and booksellers, especially
those of Paris and Rouen13. At the end of
the century, the main foreign relationships were with Italy and
Neuchâtel. The Lyon printers and booksellers certainly were
customers of the STN, but they also supplied it with permitted
and prohibited printings, as we shall see.
Such a fall may partly be exlained by Paris preponderance, which
constrained the Lyon printers to piracy ("contrefaçon").
III) The piracy and prohibited book evasion
We do not really know what the eighteenth century Lyon book production
was. The Lyon municipal Library card indexes, some bibliographies
on the way, such as Pierre Conlon's Le siècle des Lumières,
may help us to have a first glimpse. We can hope that the Bibliothèque
nationale de France project of "rétroconversion"
will soon give us a broader knowledge of what this reality was.
We already know that Lyon book production and trade were concentrated
on religious titles, and ancient works the privileges of which
were over. But we may be aware of the fact that these informations
will remain partial. We shall never know how many piracies and
prohibited books, with false addresses of London, Gibraltar, and
so on... were produced in the city. The fact is they were numerous.
The preponderence of Paris, which monopolized novelties and fashioned
authors, but also ancient best-sellers, obliged Lyon to a two
faces attitude for survival.
On the one hand, Lyon printers and booksellers presented a face
of respectability, proposing allowed mostly religious editions.
On the other hand, most of them had to deal with piracy and prohibited
printings.
Their involvement in piracy since the seventeenth century has
been pointed by some authors14, but increased
later. As it is shown by a seizure which happened in 169415,
the printers used the local monasteries, especially the Jacobins
and the Franciscan friars, as warehouses. It is even said that
a coffin of a chapel burial vault was used to hide books.
In his 1698 Mémoire sur la généralité
de Lyon, the local intendant16, wrote
:
"... les imprimeurs et libraires de Lyon sont dans une espece
de necessité de contrefaire les livres de Paris, et de
pratiquer les contraventions qu'on leur reproche et sans lesquelles
ils mourroient de faim."
A few years later, in 1702, Hilaire Baritel sent a long memorandum
to the royal administration17 denouncing
the fact. He wrote that, excepted Anisson, Posuel, Borde, Arnaud,
Thiolly, Amaulry and himself, all his colleagues resorted to piracy.
Until the decrees of august 1777, piracy went on and increased.
The local authorities, and especially the "Inspecteur de
la librairie", aware of the situation and acting as their
fellow-citizens protectors, managed to impede, sometimes for years,
the parisians' complaints.
In fact, the police knew the offenders, and visited the good places
when an affair happened. But the repression was soft. We have
studied a dozen of resounding cases of prohibited books18.
The same people were recidivists : Degoin in 1727 and 1734 ; Rigollet
in 1732, 1748, 1760 and 176119 ; Taupin Dorval
in 1761 and 176220, Réguillat in 1761
and 1767... In the best case, they were condemned to a low fine,
or as Taupin Dorval who published pornography, they left the city
for a while until the case was forgotten. Two printers have been
deposited. It did not prevent them from continuing their job.
Such was the case of Jean-Baptiste Réguillat, who printed
the Contrat social in 1767. After having been sentenced, he used
his mother as a figure-head. The most important case happened
in 1734, when fifteen bales of protestant prints from André
Degoin were seized at the Beaucaire fairs. At the same moment,
he was printing a prohibited Voltaire's Henriade in Lyon, under
the false address of London21. A perquisition
in his different warehouses allowed the discovery of about three
thousands prohibited protestant books. He was sentenced by default,
one year later, to the galleys for life. But he had fled, and
disappeared for ever.
Second offense and relative impunity seem to characterize either
piracy or prohibited printings. This is why, at the end of the
century, Lyon became an important relay for the STN activities22.
About a hundred people of Lyon corresponded with the STN. Among
them were 26 printers and booksellers. The others were factors,
suppliers, or simple customers. Robert Darnton has already pointed
the importance of the city of Lyon in his book on the Encyclopédie23. In fact, Lyon supplied Neuchâtel in
paper, printing types, candles, binding skins, and also authorised
and prohibited books. Some of the correspondants had family links
with the Switzs, like the Lyon bookseller Berthoud, a cousin of
Fauche, who signaled the STN the ways to introduce books in Paris
and Lyon, without any problem. Lyon became a turn-table for the
entrance of protestant books for the southern cities of the kingdom,
and for all kinds of prints to be sent to Paris, Rouen, and other
places. But Lyon also supplied the STN in prohibited books immediately
put on the european market. Among many instances, Bernard Flandin
proposed in 177624 copies of Académie
des dames, Thérèse philosophe, and Chandelle d'Arras.
This situation implies, in my opinion, a new glance at the STN
activities25, which could not have occured
without Lyon support.
Our work is far from being achieved. The biographical material
gathered authorises a more precise reconstitution of Lyon book
world in the eighteenth century. Our predecessors26
had insisted on his decline. It is a fact, but it has to be tempered.
More or less, the most part of our people were involved in piracy
and prohibited books. The vision we can now have is the one of
an extremely vivid, crawling, and agitated life, always on the
thread of the prohibition and the permit. We do hope that this
study will allow a rehabilitation of Lyon as the second printing
and bookselling place of the kingdom at the time of french enlightenment.
"La librairie de Lyon doit estre considérée
par raport aux pays etrangers, et au dedans du royaume ; autres
fois ce commerce étoit florissant en l'une et l'autre manière,
maintenant ce n'est rien a l'égard du dedans, et fort peu
a l'égard du dehors.
Il n'y a que deux maisons de libraire qui fassent le commerce
de l'etranger, le principal est avec l'Espagne et les Indes Espagnolles,
l'impression y étant peu en usage tant a cause de la paraisse
naturelle de cette nation sur toutte sorte de travaux, qu'a cause
de la rareté et cherté du papier que les Espagnols
sont obligéz ou de Gennes ou de la Rochelle.
Les livres qui s'impriment pour les Espagnols ne sont guere propres
que pour eux, et sont presque tous livres scolastiques de jurisprudence
ou de medecine composez par des autheurs de leur pays ou des Italiens,
le bon marché en fait un des plus grands mérites,
on en taxe mesme le prix en Espagne par cette raison il se faut
bien garder dans ces impressions de s'attacher a la beauté,
soit du caractère, soit du papier, c'est en quoy la librairie
de Lyon souffre, parce que payant les doannes et tous les droits
des matieres qu'elle employe, et ces matieres les plus viles et
de moindre valeur payant autant que les bonnes les libraires lyonnois
ne peuvent plus faire aux Espagnols le bon marché qu'ils
demandent et qu'ils trouvent chez les Venitiens et les Genois,
lesquels depui trente ou quarant ans font une grande partie de
ce que Lyon faisoit autres fois, les libraires pretendent que
jusqu'à ce temps la ils avoient joüy des exemptions
dont joüissent les libraires de Paris pour tout ce qui est
destiné a leur art.
Pour ce qui est des livres de france il ne s'en imprime guere
de nouveaux a Lyon par ce que les autheurs sont payez bien plus
grassement par les libraires de Paris. Il ne sçauroit non
plus s'en imprimer danciens a cause des continuations des privileges,
et par là les imprimeurs et libraires de Lyon sont dans
une espece de necesité de contrefaire les livres de Paris,
et de pratiquer les contraventions qu'on leur reproche et sans
lesquelles ils mourroient de faim."27
1 This paper has been
presented at the Society for the History of Authorship Reading
and Publishing conference, held at Magdalene College, Cambridge,
July 3rd-8th 1997.
2 DARNTON (Robert), "Nouvelles
pistes en histoire du livre", Revue française d'histoire
du livre, n· 90-91, 1er et 2ème trimestres 1996,
p. 173-180.
3 VARRY (Dominique), "La diffusion
sous le manteau : la Société typographique de Neuchâtel
et les Lyonnais", L'Europe et le livre. Réseaux et
pratiques du négoce de librairie XVIe-XIXe siècles,
sous la direction de Frédéric BARBIER, Sabine JURATIC,
Dominique VARRY, Paris, Klincksieck, 1996, p. 309-332.
4 Lyon Municipal Archives : FF 020,
placard, 2nd may 1719.
5 Devers family archives.
6 Bibliothèque nationale : mss
NAF 399 : 1701 inquiry.
7 MOULE (L.), "Rapport de Cl. Bourgelat
sur le commerce de la librairie et de l'imprimerie à Lyon
en 1763", Revue d'histoire de Lyon, 1914, tome XIII, p. 51-65.
(Bibliothèque nationale : mss FF. 22128, f· 291-302).
8 Jean-Marie 1 Barret (1731-1786), Jean-Marie
2 Bruyset (1749-1817), his brother Pierre-Marie Bruyset (1745-executed
in 1793), Aimé Delaroche (1715-1801), his son-in-law Jacques-Julien
Vatar (1727-1777) and his grandson Aimé Vatar-Delaroche
(executed in 1793), Claude-André Faucheux (1741-executed
in 1793),Jean-André Périsse-Duluc (1738-1800). Two
of the newcomers who settled in Lyon during the Revolution also
belonged to the freemasonry at the beginning of the XIXth century
: Michel-Alexandre Pelzin (1751-1828), and Jean-Baptiste Kindelem.
9 JOLY (Alice), Un mystique lyonnais
et les secrets de la franc-Maçonnerie. Jean-Baptiste Willermoz
1730-1824, Paris, Demeter, 1986.
10 Lyon City Library : mss 5430.
11 LAMBERT-D'HERBIGNY, Mémoire
sur la généralité de Lyon, manuscrit, 1698,
p. 257-259 (Lyon, Gadagnes Museum).
12 GARDEN (Maurice), Lyon et les lyonnais
au XVIIIe siècle, Paris, Belles-Lettres, 1970, p. 378.
13 CHARTIER (Roger), "Livre et
espace: circuits commerciaux et géographie culturelle de
la librairie lyonnaise au XVIIIe siècle", Revue française
d'histoire du livre,1971, n· 1, p. 77-108.
14 ROUBERT (Jacqueline), "La situation
de l'imprimerie lyonnaise à la fin du XVIIe siècle",
Cinq études lyonnaises, edited by Henri-Jean MARTIN, Genève-Paris,
1966, p. 77-111.
PARGUEZ (Guy), "Essai sur l'origine lyonnaise d'éditions
clandestines de la fin du XVIIe siècle", Nouvelles
études lyonnaises, Genève-Paris, Droz, 1969, p.
93-130.
15 GAY (Jean), Saisie de livres prohibés
faite aux couvents des jacobins et des cordeliers à Lyon
en 1694, Turin, V. Bona, 1876.
16 LAMBERT-D'HERBIGNY, Mémoire
sur la généralité de Lyon, manuscrit, 1698,
p. 257-259 (Lyon, Gadagnes Museum).
17 Bibliothèque nationale :
mss FF 22011, tome 1, documents 201-203.
18 VARRY (Dominique), "Le livre
clandestin à Lyon", paper presented at the conference
"Censure et clandestinité aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles",
held at the university of Paris XII-Val de Marne, 25th april 1997.
To be published in La Lettre clandestine, n· 6, Paris,
Publications de la Sorbonne, 1997.
19 VARRY (Dominique), "Voltaire
et les imprimeurs-libraires lyonnais", Voltaire et ses combats.
Actes du congrès international Oxford-Paris 1994, sous
la direction de Ulla KÖLVING et Christiane MERVAUD, Oxford,
Voltaire Foundation, 1997, tome 1, p. 483-507.
20 VARRY (Dominique), "De la Bastille
à Bellecour : une 'canaille littéraire', Taupin
Dorval", Le Livre et l'historien. Etudes offertes en l'honneur
du Professeur Henri-Jean Martin, réunies par Frédéric
BARBIER, Annie PARENT-CHARON, François DUPUIGRENET DESROUSSILLES,
Claude JOLLY, Dominique VARRY, Genève, Droz, 1997, p. 571-582.
21 Bengesco n· 372, Bibliothèque
nationale. Catalogue n· 1697.
22 VARRY (Dominique), "La diffusion
sous le manteau : la Société typographique de Neuchâtel
et les Lyonnais", loc. cit.
23 DARNTON (Robert), The Business of
Enlightenment. a Publishing History of the Encyclopédie
1775-1800, Cambridge (Mass.), Belknap Press and Harvard University
Press, 1979. French translation : L'Aventure de l'Encyclopédie.
Un best-seller au siècle des Lumières, Paris, Perrin,
1982.
24 Neuchâtel, Bibliothèque
Publique et Universitaire, mss 1151, f· 81.
25 VARRY (Dominique), "Pour de
nouvelles approches des archives de la Société typographique
de Neuchâtel", to be published in a book in the honour
of Robert Darnton, at the Voltaire Foundation, Oxford.
26 VINGTRINIER (Aimé), Histoire
de l'imprimerie à Lyon de l'origine jusqu'à nos
jours, Lyon, 1894.
GROSCLAUDE (Pierre), La Vie intellectuelle à Lyon dans
la deuxième moitié du XVIIIe siècle, Paris,
1933.
TRENARD (Louis), Commerce et culture. Le livre à Lyon au
XVIIIe siècle, Lyon, Albums du crocodile, juillet-août
1953.
27 LAMBERT-D'HERBIGNY, Mémoire
sur la généralité de Lyon, manuscrit, 1698,
p. 257-259 (Lyon, Gadagnes Museum).