Padeloup made several large bindings, and his stamps are often large and boldly cut, but his successors gradually fined his style down until the original bold indented work became quite small and lace-like in itself. The liking for inlaid work which was started by Padeloup rapidly grew, and it caused a certain deterioration in the taste of French binding because it gave such scope for minute technical skill that this soon became more sought after than the power of fine designing. The skill shown on inlaid bindings by Jean le Monnier, for instance, is astonishing, but the designs on all his bindings are weak. The same may be said of the work of J. A. Derôme. But the work of both these binders is much sought after and esteemed by many collectors. Derôme le Jeune was the most important French binder of the late eighteenth century. He took Padeloup’s large “dentelles” and altered them so much that he at last evolved a style of his own from them. Derôme drew the whole design out in a much smaller and more delicate way, and always put in some bird figures, and these designs are known as “Dentelles a l’oiseau.” He used citron, olive and red morocco. Derôme has not a good reputation as a forwarder; he is said to have cropped his books badly, and also to have “sawn in” his bands so as to get flat or open backs. Even so, he did not invent “sawn in” bands, as that vice was practised in England a hundred years before Derôme’s time, in the case of embroidered books; but the fact of these two mannerisms having been noticed in the work of this great binder only shows that the same faults were probably universally prevalent at the time. Modern French work is astonishing for its technical skill. The work of Capé, Duru, Thouvenin, Bauzonnet, Trautz, Lortic, Niedrée, Marius-Michel, Chambolle, and many others is admirable from all workmanlike points of view. But there is no genius in any of it; a great French binder of this century is yet to come. Spanish bindings are often very handsomely gold tooled, and are usually ornamented with heraldic designs. Little is known at present about them, but it is certainly doubtful whether any great school of gold tooling in bindings has ever existed outside Italy, England or France. BOOKS TO CONSULT. ANGLO-SAXON REVIEW.--_London_, 1899. (Articles at the beginning of each vol., by Cyril Davenport.) BAUCHART.--_See_ Quentin-Bauchart. BERALDI, H.--La Reliure du XIX^e. Siècle. _London_, 1895-97. BERNARD, A. J.--G. Tory. _Paris_, 1857. BICKELL, L.--Bucheinbände des XV. bis XVIII. Jahrhunderts aus hessischen Bibliotheken. _Leipzig_, 1892. BOSQUET, E.--La Reliure. _Paris_, 1894. BOUCHOT, H.--De la Reliure. _Paris_, 1891. BOUCHOT, H.--Le Livre. _Paris_, 1886. BOUCHOT, H.--Les reliures d’Art à la Bibliothèque Nationale. _Paris_, 1888. BRASSINGTON, W. S.--Historic bindings in the Bodleian Library. _London_, 1891. BRUNET, C. G.--Etudes sur la reliure des Livres. _Bordeaux_, 1891.