Nicolas de Fer was apprenticed to Parisian engraver Louis Spirinx, and made his first map of the Canal du Midi at the age of twenty-three. His father, Antoine, was also a printer and his business passed to Nicolas in 1687. The fortunes of the firm improved rapidly under De Fer’s management, and he combined cartographic skill with a keen eye for advancement. In 1689 he produced a map of Franche-Comte to honour the Grand Dauphin’s leadership of a campaign to capture new territories in the Rhine, with a blurb saying that the Dauphin’s conquests had lent legitimacy to the campaign. He then became official geographer to the Dauphin.