Ducos du Hauron was a remarkable man by any standard: photographer; inventor in the field of color reproduction, 3-D photography, and motion pictures; pianist of concert level. He was born December 8, 1837, in Langon, Department of Gironde, France. His father, being a low-level career officer of the government, had to move his family about a good deal. These uprootings and the fact that Louis had poor health (something which handicapped him throughout life) did little to help his formal education. Much of this was, indeed, private instruction at home. He did not take a university degree. He died at Agen Perigord (109 kilometers from Toulouse) on August 31, 1920, at the age of 83. Ducos wrote many papers, most on 3-color reproduction, including one on reducing 3-color to 2-color. During his lifetime, he was granted seventeen French patents. Most of these are related to color reproduction, but the list includes one for a windmill, one on stereoscopy, several on anamorphic optical devices, and two related to motion pictures. The second, #259,399, applied for August 29, 1896, was titled New optical combinations, which eliminate entirely all intermittance of lighting in photographic moving pictures (tableaux). Many medals and prizes came to him, among them: Paris exposition silver medal (1878); Paris exposition diploma of the Golden Book (1889); Janssen medal of the French Photographic Society (1897); and Officer of the Academy (1899). In 1912 he was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor on the occasion of the Expositions of Rome, Dresden, and Turin. Now to the matter in hand: the patent of 1864. Five references to Ducos, at least three of which are likely to be seen by anyone interested in the early history of the motion picture, are what set me to the task of finding out more about him: Gordon Hendricks,