the technical side of his business Henri had been helped by Simon de Colines, who, on his employer's death, in 1520, became his widow's third husband, and carried on the business until 1526, when he handed it over to Robert Estienne, and started on his own account in another house in the same street. Thus, just as the co-operation of Erasmus with Froben, which began shortly before the death of Aldus, brought the Basel press into prominence, so this duplication, just before the death of Froben, of the business of Henri Estienne with the two firms of Robert Estienne and Simon de Colines materially aided the rivalry of Paris. Greek printing, which by this time had become essential to a printer's reputation for scholarship, had at last begun there with the publication of a Greek Grammar in 1507, and had increased somewhat, though not very rapidly. In 1539 Francois I appointed Robert Estienne royal printer for Latin and Hebrew, and Conrad Neobar, a German from the diocese of Cologne, his printer for Greek. It was soon after this that plans were formed for the printing of Greek texts from manuscripts in the royal library, and the preparation for this purpose of a special fount of Greek type. Neobar died from overwork the following year, and the office of royal printer in Greek was added to Robert Estienne's other honours, and with it the supervision of the new Greek type. For this Angelus Vergetius, a celebrated Greek calligrapher, had probably already made the drawings, and the cutting of the punches was entrusted to Claude Garamond. By 1544 a fount of great primer had been completed and a book printed in it, the _Praeparatio Euangelica_ of Eusebius. A smaller type, of the size known as pica, was next put in hand, and a pocket Greek Testament in sextodecimo printed with it in 1546. Lastly, a third fount, larger than either of the others, was produced and used for the text of a folio Greek Testament in 1550, the other two founts appearing in the prefatory matter and notes. These royal Greek types became very famous and served as a model to all designers of Greek characters for nearly two centuries. Technically, indeed, they are as good as they could be, showing a great advance in clearness and dignity upon those of Aldus, from which nevertheless they inherited the fatal defect of being based on the handwriting of contemporary Greek scholars, instead of on the book-hand of a nobler period of Greek writing.