In 1685, a royal edict was issued by Louis XIV, ordering the destruction of all heretical books and the punishment of those who should retain copies of the same. As a result of the edict, the Parliament of Paris issued a decree appointing the Archbishop of Paris to prepare an _Index prohibitorius_ of books which in his judgment ought to be suppressed, an instruction which was carried out with all promptness. The list of the archbishop comprised the names of about five hundred authors. The books condemned were those of the Lutherans, Socinians, Arminians, and Greeks. Included with these were all versions of the Scriptures. The Parliament published at once a decree enforcing the prohibition and commanding a strict search to be made for such books in the bookshops and printeries and also in private houses. Many books were burned, including a large number of copies of the Scriptures. The protection, or toleration, heretofore, in form at least, extended to Protestants was during the same year, 1685, withdrawn by the Edict of Fontainebleau, repealing the Edict of Nantes. [Sidenote: Lyons] The printers of Lyons succeeded in building up, within a very few years after the introduction of printing into France, a profitable business. They had the advantage of being well out of the way of both ecclesiastical and political censorship. They were quite prepared to take up promptly editions of books which had been prohibited in Paris and in Rome, or later in Geneva. They were also among the earliest to develop the art of what may be called piratical printing. The great expense of the production of earlier editions, more particularly of the classics, was the outlay for scholarly editing. The printers of Lyons promptly discovered that they could make money by utilising the expenditures of Aldus in Venice, or of the scholarly printers in Paris, through the appropriation of editorial material. They brought out editions printed with the text that had been shaped in Venice and in some cases in direct imitation of the typography of these first and so to speak authorised editions. By the year 1495, there were no less than forty printers doing active work in Lyons, a number considerably in excess of those who were then carrying on business in Paris. * * * * *