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WHETHER IT IS TO THE BENEFIT OF
the public to grant booksellers prolongations of
their privileges, in view of the present state of things
in the book trade.

      There is no doubt whatsoever that amongst all the Arts that of Printing is very
important, since it has the advantage of preserving them all, and in a certain way even
of being the depository of the Laws and of Religion. Neither is there any doubt that
our Kings have considered it most worthy of their attention and care, and that they
have spoken of it so many times in their Edicts for the regulation of how it is
exercised.
      They have concluded that, since the faults which are committed here can have
long-lasting repercussions and spread across the whole world, it is very important that
they should not be committed at all and that this Art should be practised by skilful and,
moreover, honourable people. Nevertheless, since a number of years Printing has sunk
into a state of dissoluteness so horrible and so strange that, if we wish to rescue it
from this, it will be necessary to make use of various remedies, and I think that the
most effective one at present would be to have the Booksellers enjoy the privileges
which the King has the kindness to grant to them, and even to give them extensions of
these if His Majesty should decide that they need them.
      If it were done in this way, Books would be printed to a better quality, and
they would also sell better – regardless of any opinion [to the contrary] which might
be entertained by those who do not sufficiently take into account the economic
situation of our times, even though this is a very important thing as far as Printing is
concerned, and who point out instead how honourably we lived from printing at the
time of Federic Morel, Pierre L'Huillier, Jamet Metayer, Mamert Patisson, and
the Étiennes, and how different it is nowadays.
      In those times, and for many years afterwards too, it was possible to live so
honestly from Printing that far from a Bookseller trying to counterfeit [contrefaire]
another's Book – such an idea would simply never have occurred to him. In those
days the trust [la bonne foi] which there was between individuals served as a public
law, and there was no need for Privileges, still less for Prolongations of the latter,
which now, of course, are so necessary, given the disorder in which I see our
profession and the little respect which colleagues here have