Though Rouen was without a printer till 1487, it became within a very few years one of the most important towns in the history of French printing. Its fortunate position on the Seine, equally advantageous for sending books to Paris or exporting them to England, was doubtless the chief cause of its great prosperity, and its influence over the book trade was felt, not only over all France, but over England as well. The first printer was Guillaume le Talleur, and his first book, _Les Chroniques de Normandie_, was published in May 1487. He printed several law books for Richard Pynson about 1490, and was very probably his teacher. The most important export from Rouen was certainly service-books, and of these endless numbers were issued for various uses. Martin Morin, who began to print in 1490, was especially connected with this kind of work, and some of the most beautiful of the Salisbury Missals are from his press. The printers were, however, not nearly so numerous as the booksellers, though it is not always very easy to distinguish between them. Morin, Le Talleur, Noel de Harsy, Jean le Bourgeois, and Jacques le Forestier, may safely be given as printers; others, like Richard and Regnault, were probably only booksellers or stationers. Besançon also had a printing press in 1487, but who the first printer was is not very certainly known. Several writers consider him to have been Jean du Pré; but M. Thierry-Poux, judging from the types, considers that Peter Metlinger, who printed later at Dôle, is more likely to have been the printer. In 1488 (26th March 1487), Jean Crès printed the first book at Lantenac, an edition in French of _Mandeville’s Travels_. Its colophon mentions no name of place, but the type and the printer’s name are identical with those of the _Doctrinal des nouvelles mariées_ of 1491, which has the name of the place, Lantenac, in the colophon. Between 1490 and the end of 1500 printing was introduced into twenty towns. In 1490, to Embrun, Grenoble, and Dôle; but the first and second of these places only produced a single book each. In 1491, to Orleans, Goupillières, Angoulême, Dijon, and Narbonne. M. Jarry[26] mentions a certain Jehan le Roy, who was spoken of at Orleans in 1481 as a printer and stationer, but nothing printed by him is known. The first book known is a _Manipulus Curatorum_ in French, printed by Matthew Vivian. Our knowledge of the existence of a press at Goupillières in the fifteenth century is the result of a fortunate discovery made by M. Delisle. He found, used as boards for an old binding, thirty-six leaves of a book of _Hours ‘à l’usage du diocèse d’Evreux,’_ with a colophon stating that it was printed at Goupillières on the 8th May 1491, by Michel Andrieu, a priest. At Narbonne also but one book was printed before 1500, a _Breviarium ad usum ecclesiæ Narbonensis_. [26] _Les débuts de l’Imprimerie à Orléans._ Orléans, 1884.