Alfred-Henri-Amand Mame

His eldest son, bookseller and publisher in Paris, under the First Empire, edited Chateaubriand's famous opuscule, "Buonaparte et les Bourbons", also Madame de Staël's works; and the persecutions directed against these books by the Napoleonic police caused the financial ruin of the editor.

After having edited, together with his cousin Ernest Mame, from 1833 to 1845, some classics and a few devotional books, Alfred conceived and carried out, for the first time, the idea of uniting in the same publishing house, a certain number of workshops, grouping all the industries connected with the making of books: printing, binding, selling, and forwarding.

Inspired by the social Catholic ideal, Alfred Mame established for his employees a pension fund for those over sixty, wholly maintained by the firm.

He opened schools, which caused him to receive one of the ten thousand francs awards reserved for the "établissements modèles où régnaient au plus haut degré l'harmonie sociale et le bien-être des ouvriers".

There were the Bible with illustrations from Gustave Doré; Vétault's Charlemagne; Wallon's St. Louis; the Chefs d'oeuvres de la langue française.