Political imitators had not been found for the French Revolution in all the neighbouring countries of Europe, but its Greco-Roman art established itself, and by degrees was introduced into the studios of painters and the printing offices. Prud'hon, Gerard, Girodet, and later Desenne, without counting the younger Moreau and his contemporaries of the older regime, rallied to the new study, forming a school of illustrators and vignettists with which the publishers could resolutely advance. England followed suit with Flaxman, West, Fuseli, Barry, and a crowd of others. Among the publishers the powerful family of the Didots took first rank, and its members, at once type-founders, printers, booksellers, and _savants_ of the first order, were the best fitted to direct an artistic and literary movement. When Napoleon crowned himself emperor of the French, the elders of the family had already brought about a number of perfections and discoveries in their profession by which their workshops had profited. François Ambroise, who died in the year of the Empire, had given an exact proportion to types, a free and elegant turn, but perhaps too regular and precise to be agreeable. He had also invented a press called the _presse à un coup_, in which the impression was taken by a single pull instead of being produced by a series of successive strikings. His brother, Pierre François, spoken of in the preceding chapter, was a type-founder and paper-maker at Essones, and counted among his official titles "printer to the Comte de Provence," as François Ambroise was to the Comte d'Artois. Of these two branches equally faithful to typography, Pierre Didot, son of François Ambroise, became the head on the death of his father. Born in 1760, he had studied his art with passion, and had merited the installation of his workshops in the Louvre, where he published a celebrated collection known as the Louvre editions, the _chef-d'oeuvre_ of which was the works of Racine. The splendid execution of this book, in three large folio volumes, was a true typographical revolution. Never in any country had scrupulous perfection of detail been joined to so masterly a knowledge of disposition and form of characters. The great artists of the Davidian school had the honour of seeing their drawings reproduced as illustrations, and those named above designed the fifty-seven plates with which the edition was adorned. Pierre Didot displayed a great affectation in only printing two hundred and fifty copies of his irreproachable and marvellous work, of which a hundred had proofs of the plates before letters. Published by subscription, the ordinary edition was issued at 1,200 francs, and with proofs 1,800 francs.