French Lower Case

 «  ç     é     -  '     i      à  è  ù  â  ê  î  ô  û 
wbcd of ghffffiffl
e
kflaeoe
zqmn slpjfi!en
y;:?em
hair
xvutespaces ar ,.cadrats


This French typecase lay is shown in Audin: Histoire de l'imprimerie par l'image vol.1 (1929) as being Lefèvre's case, taken from Lefèvre: Recueil complet d'impositions, exécutées en caractères mobiles, suivi d'une nouvelle classification de la casse française (1838). It differs slightly from another Lefèvre case also shown by Audin, as the position of e and i is reversed, the latter case replaces w and k with a single box for em dash, and has figures not accents in the case. Some ligatures are therefore moved into the upper case, along with j and ;. There are fewer small boxes, and hair spaces occupy the box where the present case has f (which moves along).

Overall, this case has 57 boxes. The empty case is Lefèvre and the companion upper case lay is Lefèvre.

The column of boxes coloured grey should be ignored - this is the central partition, but displayed this way to allow html to represent the differing row heights (the box for i is slightly larger than the adjacent boxes for ' and à and the box for 1pt spaces is slightly smaller). 1pt spaces are hairs, demi cadratins are ens and cadratins are ems. Cadrats are quads.

Other empty cases
ie with the boxes left blank
Other type layouts
ie with characters assigned to boxes
Full Index of layoutsGlossary of terms usedSources of the layoutsIntroduction
Quantities in a fount of typeQuantities in a case of type
Notes about Job
and Double Cases
Notes about Upper casesNotes about Lower casesAlembic home page

This page was written in 2013 by David Bolton and last updated 16 August 2013.