ABSTRACT
Handwriting is characterizes as bold, energetic, florid, coquettish, vain, naive, calculating, and these estimates were roughly correct. This, of course, was not graphology, it was more a matter of characterising the writing than of supplying an interpretation, an analysis. Flandrin became the teacher of Abbe Hypolite Michon, with whom the history of graphology really begins. Michon possessed an extraordinary gift of observation, an unusual memory, and an ardent interest in handwriting. Michon's doctrine consisted in the discovery of particular signs for a large number of character qualities in handwriting. To some extent it is due to this that Crepieux-Jamin has adhered to his old methods, whereas German authors tend to look down on his methods, which scientifically have become obsolete, without, however, appreciating the inspiring properties contained in them. Until the year 1895, the German graphologists were entirely under the influence of the work of their French colleagues.
