France in the Eighteenth Century: Its Institutions, Customs and Costumes Paperback - 2017

Paul Lacroix (1806 - 1884), French author and journalist, was born in Paris, the son of a novelist. He is best known under his pseudonym of "P. L. Jacob, bibliophile," or "Bibliophile Jacob," suggested by the constant interest he took in public libraries and books generally. Lacroix was an extremely prolific and varied writer. At the age of twenty-four he founded the journal _Le Gastronome_. More than twenty historical romances alone came from his pen, and he also wrote a variety of serious historical works, including a history of Napoleon III and the life and times of the Tsar Nicholas I of Russia. He was the joint author with Ferdinand Sr of a five-volume work, _Le moyen ge et la renaissance_ (1847), a standard work on the manners, customs and dress of those times. He also wrote many monographs on phases of the history of culture, including _Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period_ and _Costumes historiques de la France d'aprs les monuments les plus authentiques_. An exhaustive six-volume _Histoire de la prostitution_ (1851-1854), published under the name Pierre Dufour, has always been attributed to Lacroix. His works on bibliography were also extremely numerous, as was his periodical _Revue universelle des arts_, which he founded in 1855.