The mosaic bindings used from the end of the reign of Louis XIV. were an application of pared leathers of colours different from the background, pasted on to the side. The binders of the regency composed a great number, attributed now to Pasdeloup, as all the crayons of the sixteenth century are called Clouets, and all the panels on wood Holbeins. It is not that there was great originality in these works, or a particular art; more often the workman did no more than transcribe Le Gascon or Eve or the older binders, and accommodated the processes of these artists to the fashion of his time. In this style we may cite the _Spaccio de la Bestia Trionfante_, printed at Paris 1584, for which the binder designed a cover of doubtful taste and, above all, an undeniable want of proportion. The tendency was then to flowers occupying three-fourths of the page, to compartments too large, to open pomegranates, like the _Spaccio_ here reproduced. If Pasdeloup had discovered these mediocre combinations, he could not be proclaimed the regenerator of a fallen art. The bastard style of these works may be compared to their mosaics, constructed of pieces; it is a little of everything, and together it is nothing. However, in the midst of the quantity of mediocre things, some pleasing decoration is from time to time met with; the design of a volume with the arms of the Regent and his wife, Mademoiselle de Blois, wants neither elegance nor taste; without being perfection, it has better proportion and balance. [Illustration: Fig. 118.--Mosaic binding of the eighteenth century, with the arms of the Regent. M. Morgand's collection.] We should, however, hesitate to give names to all these works. Besides Pasdeloup, there were the Deromes, abandoning a little the mosaics, devising flowers and _dentelles_ in combination, and no longer the simple products of the fillet. They formed a dynasty; and if the Pasdeloups were at least twelve, there were fourteen Deromes all booksellers and binders from the reign of Louis XIV. The most celebrated was James Anthony, who died in 1761. Peter Paul Dubuisson was not only a binder; he was a designer. He invented heraldic ornaments, and composed models of gilding tools, in which his contemporaries emulated him. He was intimate with the delicate vignettist Eisen, and the counsels of an artist of this value could not but be useful to him. It is an extraordinary thing that in this world of celebrated printers, amateur financiers, and notable painters and engravers, not a single man can be met to give a real impulse to the art of which we speak, and to prevent the dull continuance of experiments on the whole so poor. Doubtless the _dentelles_ of Derome had a certain air of gaiety, to which the books of the eighteenth century accommodated themselves perfectly; the tools of Dubuisson produce most pleasing designs; but the old, the great binders, had altogether disappeared.