An Essay in the History of Gold-Tooled
Bindings by Herbert P. Horne
London 1894
and Lyons' sales, we have, upon the other hand, sufficient evidence: and the discovery of this
second catalogue of the Marquis de la Bazoniere's library, issuing from the same source, in
which several hundred volumes, bound by the 'Abbe du Seuil,' are prominently set down, tends
to raise, rather than allay, suspicion in the matter. Regarding the association of the name of Du
Seuil, with the style of the double fillet, which first came into use c. 1622, no explanation,
however empirical, has yet been attempted.
Antoine Michel Padeloup, commonly called, PadeIoup Ie jeune, who succeeded Luc Antoine
Boyet as 'Relieur de Roi,' came of a family, which could boast five successive generations of
stationers and bookbinders. Of these, Antoine Padeloup, the grandfather of Padeloup Ie jeune,
obtained his freedom as a master-binder, in 1633; and Franc;ois Padeloup, of the fifth
generation, was still working at the beginning of the present century. Antoine Michel Padeloup
was born on 22nd December, 1685, and served his apprenticeship with his father, Michel
Padeloup. Before the year 1712, he had married Marguerite Renault, and had established
himself as a master binder. I t was his practice to affix a small engraved, or printed, ticket, either
to the title-page, or the end-papers, of the books bound by him: and on one of these, which
occurs in a book printed in 1633, Carte gln/rale de la Monarchle franfolse, he styles himself
'Relieur ordinaire du Roy de Portugal' [Gruel's Manuel, s.n.]. At this time he was living in the
Place de Sorbonne. The breve, appointing him Binder in Ordinary to Louis xv., in the place of Luc
Antoine Boyet, is dated 23rd August of the same year; which office, he held conjointly with
Augustin Du Seuil, who had married his cousin, Francoise: in 1635, Padeloup was elected one of
the Wardens of the Guild of St. Jean, of which he was an active member. His first wife, who bore
him a numerous family, having died; he married, for a second time, in 1751, Claude Perrot, a girl
of nineteen, by whom he had six children. His own death occurred on 7th September, 1758.
Padeloup Ie jeune was much employed, not only by the king, but by all the chief collectors of his
age: and his practice, of attaching his ticket to the books, which he bound, often enables his
work to be recognized with certainty. In the skill, and taste, with which he forwarded his simpler
bindings, he belongs to the age of Boyet, and completes the art of the seventeenth century.
His work, in common with that of the distinguished forwarders, who preceded him, is
remarkable for its solidity, pliant ness, finish, and for the beauty of the leathers, which are
employed in it. A copy of an Eutropzus, etc., Paris, 1539, in the British Museum, bound in blue
morocco, and stamped with the arms of Comte d'Hoym, is a good example of his art, in this
regard [674. a. 14.]. At the foot of the title-page of this little book, is pasted his ticket, engraved
with the inscription: ' Relie par Padeloup Ie jeune, place Sorbonne a Paris.