Styles and periods in French ex-libris are not nearly so well defined, nor so easily recognized, as they are in British plates by the simple terms we use, such as Early English, Jacobean, Chippendale, wreath and ribbon, book-pile, library interior, etc. French military plates are often decorated with flags, cannon, and fine trophies of arms, but book-piles and library interiors are somewhat uncommon, as are also early plates containing the portraits of their owners. One of the earliest portrait plates is that of Amy Lamy, with the motto “Usque ad aras,” probably engraved by some pupil of Thomas de Leu, of which the date is doubtful. Another, and of greater interest, is that of the famous critic, the Abbé Desfontaines (1685-1745), a fine engraving by Schmit, after Tocqué, representing Petr. Fr. Guyot Desfontaines presb. Rothomag., with the following lines: Dum te Phœbus amat scribentem, Mœvius odit, Et lepidis salibus mæret inepta cohors. Which a French admirer translates thus: Chéri du dieu des arts, craint et haï des sots, L’Ignorance en courroux frémit de ses bons mots. On modern ex-libris portraits occasionally occur, as on that of M. Manet, with the punning phrase, “Manet et Manebit,” and that of a well-known English collector and scholar, Mr. H. S. Ashbee, designed by Paul Avril, a French artist. Another represents M. Georges Vicaire, in the costume of a _chef_, superintending the preparation of a _ragout_ of books to please the literary gourmands. But probably the finest modern portrait ex-libris is that drawn by M. Henry André, the book-plate artist, for himself: this is dated 1894. The collector must be on his guard against modern reprints from old plates, or ex-libris printed from re-engraved copper plates. French collectors will commission engravers to copy rare old plates rather than be without examples of them in their albums; this they do openly and acknowledge frankly; but it is sometimes otherwise with the men whom they employ. They work off a number of copies for sale, mix them up with a parcel of genuine ex-libris, and so deceive the unwary collector. The British collector will not find it easy to add much to his store in Paris, unless he is prepared to pay prices quite out of proportion to those usually charged for plates in this country. In the first place, it is almost a waste of time to ask for ex-libris in any of the ordinary second-hand book shops; the books are all fairly well gleaned before reaching there, by individuals who collect the ex-libris for certain dealers who make a speciality of them. These dealers are not very numerous, they are all well known to the French collectors, and they have standing orders to reserve all their finest specimens for these regular customers. Consequently the stray passer-by, or the unfortunate foreigner, has little chance of picking up any but common or uninteresting plates.