Now you may be wondering what the canals on Mars have to do with the Perseids, and I will tell you. They were discovered, and called canali, by Giovanni Schiaparelli, who also was the first to link the Perseids with the Comet Swift-Tuttle.
Unfortunately his "canali" was mistranslated, to canals, leading to all sorts of theories about water and that planet - and also to claims that he had foolishly believed this to be the truth, when in actuality he did not, for "canali", in Italian, simply means channels.
The firm of Williot began long before Mr. Williot got involved. Its roots, dare I say, started in 1779, by Monsieur Charles Francois Giraud, who first planted chicory in France, eventually opening a factory near Valenciennes in which he cut up and roasted the roots. As to who first thought that chicory would make a good substitute for coffee, I have no idea. All I found out was that coffee was first recorded in Europe in the seventeenth century, and became a craze pretty much everywhere shortly after, even spreading to London, where, for a certain class of people, a daily coffee became a fact of life. It is thought that the first person to try and find a cheaper substitute, and tried chicory, was Dutch, or at least living in that area. We do not know who that was, but we do know that in 1801 Messrs Giraud, of Homing, and Orban, of Liege, were importing it into France.
The cards in the set are :
- 5577:1 - La Naissance du Planete
- 5577:2 - Le Canaux de Mars
- 5577:3 - L`Aspect de L`Anneau de Saturne, vu de Saturne
- 5577:4 -
- 5577:5 -
- 5577:6 - Saturn au Coucher de sa Lune
Presumably the 5577 is the series number.
This set was also issued by other manufacturers, but I am running late tonight, who knew arranging respite care was so difficult. I don`t know what is on cards four and five either, so if you do let us know, please.
In the few moments I had whilst waiting for a scan, I found the following issuers, all of which are presumably French :
- Chicoree Williot (no location)
- Chocolat Stanislas, Usine 4, Essey-les-Nancy
- Le Chocolat de L`Union, Lyon
- Le Vin de Viande Aubery (no location)
- Librairie d`Education Nationale, 9 Rue Hautefeuille, Paris