Conditions in France were not greatly different from those in Italy and Germany, although France dealt with the problem by means of privileges only and had her problem somewhat simplified by unified administration over a large territory. The first privilege to be issued in France was granted Antoine Verrard in 1507 for an edition of the Epistles of Paul with a French commentary. French privileges were sometimes issued to printers for a single work and sometimes for all the works which they might print. They ran from two to ten years. They might be general, covering the whole kingdom, or they might be local, covering a single province or district. For example, one might have the exclusive privilege of printing certain books or the books of a certain author for ten years, or another might have the privilege of printing anything of a certain sort in the city of Lyons for five years. It is understood, of course, that a privilege implied prohibition. If a man had a privilege for the works of an author throughout France that meant that no one else in France could print the same books. If he had the privilege for all that he wanted to print in Lyons it meant that nobody else in Lyons could print those books, although anybody outside of Lyons could print them freely. The French law contained one provision which does not appear elsewhere, namely that licenses could be revoked before they expired. They were occasionally issued to persons not residents of France, another provision which appears to have been peculiar to the French law. A third peculiarity is that privileges were occasionally given to authors for the control of their works, but without the right to print them or to sell them. In such a case as that the printer would have to get another privilege to print and sell the books. He would have to pay the author for the right to do so. The question of privilege in France, like the question of censorship, which we shall soon take up, was greatly complicated by the multiplication of authorities and consequent conflict and confusion. Privileges might be issued by the king, by the Parliament of Paris (a misleading name, as the Parliament of Paris was a judicial and not a legislative body), by the University of Paris, and by the Provost of Paris. The tendency in all things French, however, from early in the 15th century to the French Revolution was toward the concentration of power, so that the right to issue privileges was gradually concentrated in the hands of the king. CHAPTER III CENSORSHIP