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We know nothing, to the regret of bibliophiles, of Moliere's tastein bindings. Did he have a comic mask stamped on the leather (thatdevice was chased on his plate), or did he display his cognizanceand arms, the two apes that support a shield charged with threemirrors of Truth? It is certain--La Bruyere tells us as much--thatthe sillier sort of book-lover in the seventeenth century was muchthe same sort of person as his successor in our own time. "A mantells me he has a library," says La Bruyere (De la Mode); "I askpermission to see it. I go to visit my friend, and he receives mein a house where, even on the stairs, the smell of the black moroccowith which his books are covered is so strong that I nearly faint.He does his best to revive me; shouts in my ear that the volumes'have gilt edges,' that they are 'elegantly tooled,' that they are'of the good edition,' . . . and informs me that 'he never reads,'that 'he never sets foot in this part of his house,' that he 'willcome to oblige me!' I thank him for all his kindness, and have nomore desire than himself to see the tanner's shop that he calls hislibrary."

Colbert, the great minister of Louis XIV., was a bibliophile at whomperhaps La Bruyere would have sneered. He was a collector who didnot read, but who amassed beautiful books, and looked forward, asbusiness men do, to the day when he would have time to study them.After Grolier, De Thou, and Mazarin, Colbert possessed probably therichest private library in Europe. The ambassadors of France werecharged to procure him rare books and manuscripts, and it is saidthat in a commercial treaty with the Porte he inserted a clausedemanding a certain quantity of Levant morocco for the use of theroyal bookbinders. England, in those days, had no literature withwhich France deigned to be acquainted. Even into England, however,valuable books had been imported; and we find Colbert pressing theFrench ambassador at St. James's to bid for him at a certain sale ofrare heretical writings. People who wanted to gain his favourapproached him with presents of books, and the city of Metz gave himtwo real curiosities--the famous "Metz Bible" and the Missal ofCharles the Bald. The Elzevirs sent him their best examples, andthough Colbert probably saw more of the gilt covers of his booksthan of their contents, at least he preserved and handed down manyvaluable works. As much may be said for the reprobate CardinalDubois, who, with all his faults, was a collector. Bossuet, on theother hand, left little or nothing of interest except a copy of the1682 edition of Moliere, whom he detested and condemned to "thepunishment of those who laugh." Even this book, which has a curiousinterest, has slipped out of sight, and may have ceased to exist.

If Colbert and Dubois preserved books from destruction, there arecollectors enough who have been rescued from oblivion by books. Thediplomacy of D'Hoym is forgotten; the plays of Longepierre, and hisquarrels with J. B. Rousseau, are known only to the literaryhistorian. These great amateurs have secured an eternity of giltedges, an immortality of morocco. Absurd prices are given for anytrash that belonged to them, and the writer of this notice hasbought for four shillings an Elzevir classic, which when it bearsthe golden fleece of Longepierre is worth about 100 pounds.Longepierre, D'Hoym, McCarthy, and the Duc de la Valliere, with alltheir treasures, are less interesting to us than Graille, Coche andLoque, the neglected daughters of Louis XV. They found some paleconsolation in their little cabinets of books, in their variousliveries of olive, citron, and red morocco.

A lady amateur of high (book-collecting) reputation, the Comtesse deVerrue, was represented in the Beckford sale by one of three copiesof 'L'Histoire de Melusine,' of Melusine, the twy-formed fairy, andancestress of the house of Lusignan. The Comtesse de Verrue, one ofthe few women who have really understood book-collecting, {16} wasborn January 18, 1670, and died November 18, 1736. She was thedaughter of Charles de Luynes and of his second wife, Anne de Rohan.When only thirteen she married the Comte de Verrue, who somewhatinjudiciously presented her, a fleur de quinze ans, as Ronsard says,at the court of Victor Amadeus of Savoy. It is thought that thecountess was less cruel than the fleur Angevine of Ronsard. Forsome reason the young matron fled from the court of Turin andreturned to Paris, where she built a magnificent hotel, and receivedthe most distinguished company. According to her biographer, thecountess loved science and art jusqu'au delire, and she collectedthe furniture of the period, without neglecting the blue china ofthe glowing Orient. In ebony bookcases she possessed about eighteenthousand volumes, bound by the greatest artists of the day."Without care for the present, without fear of the future, doinggood, pursuing the beautiful, protecting the arts, with a tenderheart and open hand, the countess passed through life, calm, happy,beloved, and admired." She left an epitaph on herself, thus rudelytranslated:-

Here lies, in sleep secure,A dame inclined to mirth,Who, by way of making sure,Chose her Paradise on earth.

During the Revolution, to like well-bound books was as much as toproclaim one an aristocrat. Condorcet might have escaped thescaffold if he had only thrown away the neat little Horace from theroyal press, which betrayed him for no true Republican, but aneducated man. The great libraries from the chateaux of the nobleswere scattered among all the book-stalls. True sons of freedom toreoff the bindings, with their gilded crests and scutcheons. Onerevolutionary writer declared, and perhaps he was not far wrong,that the art of binding was the worst enemy of reading. He alwaysbegan his studies by breaking the backs of the volumes he was aboutto attack. The art of bookbinding in these sad years took flight toEngland, and was kept alive by artists robust rather than refined,like Thompson and Roger Payne. These were evil days, when thebinder had to cut the aristocratic coat of arms out of a book cover,and glue in a gilt cap of liberty, as in a volume in an Oxfordamateur's collection.

When Napoleon became Emperor, he strove in vain to make the troubledand feverish years of his power produce a literature. He himselfwas one of the most voracious readers of novels that ever lived. Hewas always asking for the newest of the new, and unfortunately eventhe new romances of his period were hopelessly bad. Barbier, hislibrarian, had orders to send parcels of fresh fiction to hismajesty wherever he might happen to be, and great loads of novelsfollowed Napoleon to Germany, Spain, Italy, Russia. The conquerorwas very hard to please. He read in his travelling carriage, andafter skimming a few pages would throw a volume that bored him outof the window into the highway. He might have been tracked by histrail of romances, as was Hop-o'-my-Thumb, in the fairy tale, by thewhite stones he dropped behind him. Poor Barbier, who ministered toa passion for novels that demanded twenty volumes a day, was at hiswit's end. He tried to foist on the Emperor the romances of theyear before last; but these Napoleon had generally read, and herefused, with imperial scorn, to look at them again. He ordered atravelling library of three thousand volumes to be made for him, butit was proved that the task could not be accomplished in less thansix years. The expense, if only fifty copies of each example hadbeen printed, would have amounted to more than six million francs.A Roman emperor would not have allowed these considerations to standin his way; but Napoleon, after all, was a modern. He contentedhimself with a selection of books conveniently small in shape, andpacked in sumptuous cases. The classical writers of France couldnever content Napoleon, and even from Moscow in 1812, he wrote toBarbier clamorous for new books, and good ones. Long before theycould have reached Moscow, Napoleon was flying homeward beforeKotousoff and Benningsen.

Napoleon was the last of the book-lovers who governed France. TheDuc d'Aumale, a famous bibliophile, has never "come to his own," andof M. Gambetta it is only known that his devotional library, atleast, has found its way into the market. We have reached the eraof private book-fanciers: of Nodier, who had three libraries in histime, but never a Virgil; and of Pixerecourt, the dramatist, whofounded the Societe des Bibliophiles Francais. The Romanticmovement in French literature brought in some new fashions in book-hunting. The original editions of Ronsard, Des Portes, Belleau, andDu Bellay became invaluable; while the writings of Gautier, PetrusBorel, and others excited the passion of collectors. Pixerecourtwas a believer in the works of the Elzevirs. On one occasion, whenhe was outbid by a friend at an auction, he cried passionately, "Ishall have that book at your sale!" and, the other poor bibliophilesoon falling into a decline and dying, Pixerecourt got the volumewhich he so much desired. The superstitious might have been excusedfor crediting him with the gift of jettatura,--of the evil eye. OnPixerecourt himself the evil eye fell at last; his theatre, theGaiete, was burned down in 1835, and his creditors intended toimpound his beloved books. The bibliophile hastily packed them inboxes, and conveyed them in two cabs and under cover of night to thehouse of M. Paul Lacroix. There they languished in exile till theaffairs of the manager were settled.

Pixerecourt and Nodier, the most reckless of men, were the leadersof the older school of bibliomaniacs. The former was not a richman; the second was poor, but he never hesitated in face of a pricethat he could not afford. He would literally ruin himself in theaccumulation of a library, and then would recover his fortunes byselling his books. Nodier passed through life without a Virgil,because he never succeeded in finding the ideal Virgil of hisdreams,--a clean, uncut copy of the right Elzevir edition, with themisprint, and the two passages in red letters. Perhaps this failurewas a judgment on him for the trick by which he beguiled a certaincollector of Bibles. He INVENTED an edition, and put the collectoron the scent, which he followed vainly, till he died of the sicknessof hope deferred.

One has more sympathy with the eccentricities of Nodier than withthe mere extravagance of the new haute ecole of bibliomaniacs, theschool of millionnaires, royal dukes, and Rothschilds. Theseamateurs are reckless of prices, and by their competition have madeit almost impossible for a poor man to buy a precious book. Thedukes, the Americans, the public libraries, snap them all up in theauctions. A glance at M. Gustave Brunet's little volume, 'LaBibliomanie en 1878,' will prove the excesses which these peoplecommit. The funeral oration of Bossuet over Henriette Marie ofFrance (1669), and Henriette Anne of England (1670), quarto, in theoriginal binding, are sold for 200 pounds. It is true that thiscopy had possibly belonged to Bossuet himself, and certainly to hisnephew. There is an example, as we have seen, of the 1682 editionof Moliere,--of Moliere whom Bossuet detested,--which also belongedto the eagle of Meaux. The manuscript notes of the divine on thework of the poor player must be edifying, and in the interests ofscience it is to be hoped that this book may soon come into themarket. While pamphlets of Bossuet are sold so dear, the firstedition of Homer--the beautiful edition of 1488, which the threeyoung Florentine gentlemen published--may be had for 100 pounds.Yet even that seems expensive, when we remember that the copy in thelibrary of George III. cost only seven shillings. This exquisiteHomer, sacred to the memory of learned friendships, the chiefoffering of early printing at the altar of ancient poetry, is reallyone of the most interesting books in the world. Yet this Homer isless valued than the tiny octavo which contains the ballades andhuitains of the scamp Francois Villon (1533). 'The History of theHoly Grail' (L'Hystoire du Sainct Greaal: Paris, 1523), in abinding stamped with the four crowns of Louis XIV., is valued atabout 500 pounds. A chivalric romance of the old days, which wastreasured even in the time of the grand monarque, when old Frenchliterature was so much despised, is certainly a curiosity. TheRabelais of Madame de Pompadour (in morocco) seems comparativelycheap at 60 pounds. There is something piquant in the idea ofinheriting from that famous beauty the work of the colossal geniusof Rabelais. {17}

The natural sympathy of collectors "to middle fortune born" is notwith the rich men whose sport in book-hunting resembles the battue.We side with the poor hunters of the wild game, who hang over thefourpenny stalls on the quais, and dive into the dusty boxes afterliterary pearls. These devoted men rise betimes, and hurry to thestalls before the common tide of passengers goes by. Early morningis the best moment in this, as in other sports. At half past seven,in summer, the bouquiniste, the dealer in cheap volumes at second-hand, arrays the books which he purchased over night, the straypossessions of ruined families, the outcasts of libraries. The old-fashioned bookseller knew little of the value of his wares; it washis object to turn a small certain profit on his expenditure. It isreckoned that an energetic, business-like old bookseller will turnover 150,000 volumes in a year. In this vast number there must bepickings for the humble collector who cannot afford to encounter thechildren of Israel at Sotheby's or at the Hotel Drouot.

Let the enthusiast, in conclusion, throw a handful of lilies on thegrave of the martyr of the love of books,--the poet Albert Glatigny.Poor Glatigny was the son of a garde champetre; his education wasaccidental, and his poetic taste and skill extraordinarily fine anddelicate. In his life of starvation (he had often to sleep inomnibuses and railway stations), he frequently spent the price of adinner on a new book. He lived to read and to dream, and if hebought books he had not the wherewithal to live. Still, he boughtthem,--and he died! His own poems were beautifully printed byLemerre, and it may be a joy to him (si mentem mortalia tangunt)that they are now so highly valued that the price of a copy wouldhave kept the author alive and happy for a month.

OLD FRENCH TITLE-PAGES

Nothing can be plainer, as a rule, than a modern English title-page.Its only beauty (if beauty it possesses) consists in the arrangementand 'massing' of lines of type in various sizes. We have returnedalmost to the primitive simplicity of the oldest printed books,which had no title-pages, properly speaking, at all, or merely gave,with extreme brevity, the name of the work, without printer's mark,or date, or place. These were reserved for the colophon, if it wasthought desirable to mention them at all. Thus, in the black-letterexample of Guido de Columna's 'History of Troy,' written about 1283,and printed at Strasburg in 1489, the title-page is blank, exceptfor the words,