M. de Guignes finds evidence that under the reign of Louis XIII. certain of the divines of the Sorbonne, who had in preparation a new edition of the Greek Fathers, presented a petition to that prince requesting that the Greek matrices might be repurchased from Geneva, and that, in consequence of this petition, the King, in May, 1619, directed the sum of three thousand livres to be paid for them to Paul Estienne, the grandson of Robert, and that the matrices were brought back to the royal printing-house. In the same essay, M. de Guignes mentions that in the year 1700, the University of Cambridge requested the Government (that of Louis XIV.) to favour it with a cast or font of the Greek characters of Francis I., then known by the name of “the King’s Greek.” The matter was referred to the French Academy, which expressed its willingness to send the font, under the condition that in all works in which the characters were used, there should be placed at the bottom of the title-page, after the usual subscription _Typis Academicis_, the words _Characteribus Græcis e Typographeo regio Parisiensi_. To this stipulation, however, the curators of the Cambridge University Press were not willing to consent, and the negotiation therefore fell through. The incident indicates that after the lapse of a century and a half, the Greek type planned by Estienne was still considered to excel fonts of later workmanship. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER V. THE LATER ESTIENNES AND CASAUBON. 1537-1659. IT is not necessary for the purpose of this study to give the record in detail of the careers and publishing undertakings of all the printers of the great family of the Estiennes. I have been interested in presenting with some fulness the account of the life and work of Robert, because he stands out as the most distinctive and forcible member of a famous literary family, and because his experience illustrates very fairly the characteristic features and the chief difficulties of the business of publishing books in France in the first half of the sixteenth century. The business careers of the brothers and of the descendants of Robert should be mentioned, however, if only to indicate the exceptional position occupied by this noteworthy family in the history of printing and publishing, and the extent of the influence exercised by it through successive generations upon the production of scholarly literature.