Civilité

These characters imitate French cursiva letters of the Renaissance, specifically a formal style of secretary hand.

"Civilité" meant "good manners" and it was thought an advantage that children should learn to read from a book printed in a type resembling current handwriting.

Two other Paris printers had typefaces made that were very similar and Granjon himself supplied his version to Guillaume Silvius and to Christophe Plantin at Antwerp.

In the mid 19th century Louis Perrin of Lyons printed J. Soulary's Sonnets humouristiques in civilité.

Granjon's experiment cannot be said to have been a success: one of the grave disadvantages was that many ligatures were required and some letters had more than one variant.