Louis Elzevir, who, as far as its publishing undertakings are concerned, was the founder of the family, had been brought up as a binder in the Flemish University town of Louvain. He was a Protestant, and in 1580, when existence for Protestants had been made difficult in the Catholic provinces of Flanders, Elzevir, in company with hundreds of others of his faith, made his way across the border to Holland, and settled, with his family, at Leyden. He was at this time about forty years of age. Leyden was, in 1580, next to Amsterdam, the most considerable and the most important city in Holland. The heroic resistance that its citizens had made during the long siege by the Spaniards had earned fame for the city throughout all Protestant Europe, while the University, which had been founded by William the Silent in commemoration of the glory of the struggle, had at once secured for itself a prestige among the scholars of Europe, and in making Leyden a centre for the literary activities of the Dutch provinces, had given a great incentive to its publishing and printing trade. Louis Elzevir found at Leyden a considerable group of Flemish Protestants who had, like himself, found it wise to get away from the rule of the Spanish soldiers and of the Roman ecclesiastics who were dominating Flanders. Among these exiles were certain men whose names became known, later, in connection with literature or with the work of the University, such as Vulcanius, Drusius, d’Audenard, Lipsius, Stevin, Heinsius, Baudius, Polyander, and Silvius, the first Printer to the University. Elzevir began work as a book binder for the students and instructors of the University, adding to this business, a little later, a book-selling shop. The undertaking proved, however, unsuccessful. During the troublous times in which the new nation was still struggling against the power of Spain for the right to exist, the number of students in the University was at best but limited, and in Leyden as in Heidelberg, Erfurt, and other of the German universities of the time, the practice of hiring or borrowing text-books, or of arranging in some manner to make one or two volumes serve for the requirements of an entire class, must have interfered not a little with the possibility of securing a living from the post of University bookseller.