conversation of our host; and the more I saw and conversed with him; the greater was my gratification.  At parting, he loaded me with a pile of pamphlets, of all sizes, of his own publication; and I ventured to predict to him that he would terminate his multifarious labours by settling into consolidated BIBLIOMANIACISM.  “On peut faire pire!”—­was his reply—­on shaking hands with me, and telling me he should certainly meet me again at Bayeux, in my progress through Normandy.[126] My acquaintance with this amiable man seemed to be my security from insults in the streets.

Education here commences early, and with incitements as alluring as at Rouen.  POISSON in the Rue Froide is the principal, and indeed a very excellent, printer; but BONNESERRE, in the same street, has put forth a vastly pretty manual of infantine devotion, in a brochure of eight pages, of which I send you the first, and which you may compare with the specimen transmitted in a former letter.[127]

[Illustration]

Chapolin, in the Rue-Froide-Rue, has recently published a most curious little manual, in the cursive secretary gothic, entitled “La Civilite honnete pour les enfans qui commence par la maniere d’apprendre et bien lire, prononcer et ecrire.”  I call it “curious,” because the very first initial letter of the text, representing C, introduces us to the bizarrerie of the early part of the XVIth century in treatises of a similar character.  Take this first letter, with a specimen also of those to which it appertains.

[Illustration]

This work is full of the old fashioned (and not a bit the worse on that account) precepts of the same period; such as we see in the various versions of the “De Moribus Juvenum,” of which the “Contenance de la Table," in the French language, is probably the most popular.  It is executed throughout in the same small and smudged gothic character; and, as I conceive; can have few purchasers.  The printers of Caen must not be dismissed without respectful mention of the typographical talents of LE ROY; who ranks after Poisson.  Let both these be considered as the Bulmer and Bensley of the place.

But among these venders of infantine literature, or of cheap popular pieces, there is no man who “drives such a trade” as PICARD-GUERIN, Imprimeur en taille-douce et Fabricant d’Images,” who lives in the Rue des Teinturiers, no.175.  I paid him more than one visit; as, from, his “fabrication,” issue the thousands and tens of thousands of broadsides, chap-books, &c. &c. which inundate Lower Normandy.  You give from one to three sous, according as the subject be simple or compound, upon wood or upon copper:—­Saints, martyrs, and scriptural subjects; or heroes, chieftains, and monarchs, including the Duke of Wellington and Louis XVIII. le Desire—­are among the taille-douces specified in the imprints.  Madame did me the honour of shewing me some of her