Chapter IV: Part 4

On the day of which I speak he had secured a volume of love-poems which the author had done his best to destroy, and he had gone to his club and read all the funniest passages aloud to friends of the author, who was on the club committee. Ah, was this a kind action? In short, Blinton had filled up the cup of his iniquities, and nobody will be surprised to hear that he met the appropriate punishment of his offence. Blinton had passed, on the whole, a happy day, notwithstanding the error about the Elzevir. He dined well at his club, went home, slept well, and started next morning for his office in the City, walking, as usual, and intending to pursue the pleasures of the chase at all the book-stalls. At the very first, in the Brompton Road, he saw a man turning over the rubbish in the cheap box. Blinton stared at him, fancied he knew him, thought he didn’t, and then became a prey to the glittering eye of the other. The Stranger, who wore the conventional cloak and slouched soft hat of Strangers, was apparently an accomplished mesmerist, or thought-reader, or adept, or esoteric Buddhist. He resembled Mr. Isaacs, Zanoni (in the novel of that name), Mendoza (in ‘Codlingsby’), the soul-less man in ‘A Strange Story,’ Mr. Home, Mr. Irving Bishop, a Buddhist adept in the astral body, and most other mysterious characters of history and fiction. Before his Awful Will, Blinton’s mere modern obstinacy shrank back like a child abashed. The Stranger glided to him and whispered, “Buy these.”

“These” were a complete set of Auerbach’s novels, in English, which, I need not say, Blinton would never have dreamt of purchasing had he been left to his own devices.

“Buy these!” repeated the Adept, or whatever he was, in a cruel whisper. Paying the sum demanded, and trailing his vast load of German romance, poor Blinton followed the fiend.

They reached a stall where, amongst much trash, Glatigny’s ‘Jour de l’An d’un Vagabond’ was exposed.

“Look,” said Blinton, “there is a book I have wanted some time. Glatignys are getting rather scarce, and it is an amusing trifle.”

“Nay, buy _that_,” said the implacable Stranger, pointing with a hooked forefinger at Alison’s ‘History of Europe’ in an indefinite number of volumes. Blinton shuddered.

“What, buy _that_, and why? In heaven’s name, what could I do with it?”

“Buy it,” repeated the persecutor, “and _that_” (indicating the ‘Ilios’ of Dr. Schliemann, a bulky work), “and _these_” (pointing to all Mr. Theodore Alois Buckley’s translations of the Classics), “and _these_” (glancing at the collected writings of the late Mr. Hain Friswell, and at a ‘Life,’ in more than one volume, of Mr. Gladstone).

The miserable Blinton paid, and trudged along carrying the bargains under his arm. Now one book fell out, now another dropped by the way. Sometimes a portion of Alison came ponderously to earth; sometimes the ‘Gentle Life’ sunk resignedly to the ground. The Adept kept picking them up again, and packing them under the arms of the weary Blinton.

The victim now attempted to put on an air of geniality, and tried to enter into conversation with his tormentor.

“He _does_ know about books,” thought Blinton, “and he must have a weak spot somewhere.”

So the wretched amateur made play in his best conversational style. He talked of bindings, of Maioli, of Grolier, of De Thou, of Derome, of Clovis Eve, of Roger Payne, of Trautz, and eke of Bauzonnet. He discoursed of first editions, of black letter, and even of illustrations and vignettes. He approached the topic of Bibles, but here his tyrant, with a fierce yet timid glance, interrupted him.

“Buy those!” he hissed through his teeth.

“Those” were the complete publications of the Folk Lore Society.

Blinton did not care for folk lore (very bad men never do), but he had to act as he was told.

Then, without pause or remorse, he was charged to acquire the ‘Ethics’ of Aristotle, in the agreeable versions of Williams and Chase. Next he secured ‘Strathmore,’ ‘Chandos,’ ‘Under Two Flags,’ and ‘Two Little Wooden Shoes,’ and several dozens more of Ouida’s novels. The next stall was entirely filled with school-books, old geographies, Livys, Delectuses, Arnold’s ‘Greek Exercises,’ Ollendorffs, and what not.

“Buy them all,” hissed the fiend. He seized whole boxes and piled them on Blinton’s head.

He tied up Ouida’s novels, in two parcels, with string, and fastened each to one of the buttons above the tails of Blinton’s coat.

“You are tired?” asked the tormentor. “Never mind, these books will soon be off your hands.”

So speaking, the Stranger, with amazing speed, hurried Blinton back through Holywell Street, along the Strand, and up to Piccadilly, stopping at last at the door of Blinton’s famous and very expensive binder.

The binder opened his eyes, as well he might, at the vision of Blinton’s treasures. Then the miserable Blinton found himself, as it were automatically and without any exercise of his will, speaking thus:—

“Here are some things I have picked up,—extremely rare,—and you will oblige me by binding them in your best manner, regardless of expense. Morocco, of course; crushed levant morocco, _doublé_, every book of them, _petits fers_, my crest and coat of arms, plenty of gilding. Spare no cost. Don’t keep me waiting, as you generally do;” for indeed book-binders are the most dilatory of the human species.

Before the astonished binder could ask the most necessary questions, Blinton’s tormentor had hurried that amateur out of the room.

“Come on to the sale,” he cried.

“What sale?” said Blinton.

“Why, the Beckford sale; it is the thirteenth day, a lucky day.”

“But I have forgotten my catalogue.”

“Where is it?”

“In the third shelf from the top, on the right-hand side of the ebony book-case at home.”

The stranger stretched out his arm, which swiftly elongated itself till the hand disappeared from view round the corner. In a moment the hand returned with the catalogue. The pair sped on to Messrs. Sotheby’s auction-rooms in Wellington Street. Every one knows the appearance of a great book-sale. The long table, surrounded by eager bidders, resembles from a little distance a roulette table, and communicates the same sort of excitement. The amateur is at a loss to know how to conduct himself. If he bids in his own person some bookseller will outbid him, partly because the bookseller knows, after all, he knows little about books, and suspects that the amateur may, in this case, know more. Besides, professionals always dislike amateurs, and, in this game, they have a very great advantage. Blinton knew all this, and was in the habit of giving his commissions to a broker. But now he felt (and very naturally) as if a demon had entered into him. ‘Tirante il Bianco Valorosissimo Cavaliere’ was being competed for, an excessively rare romance of chivalry, in magnificent red Venetian morocco, from Canevari’s library. The book is one of the rarest of the Venetian Press, and beautifully adorned with Canevari’s device,—a simple and elegant affair in gold and colours. “Apollo is driving his chariot across the green waves towards the rock, on which winged Pegasus is pawing the ground,” though why this action of a horse should be called “pawing” (the animal notoriously not possessing paws) it is hard to say. Round this graceful design is the inscription ΟΡΘΩΣ ΚΑΙ ΜΗ ΑΟΞΙΩΣ (straight not crooked). In his ordinary mood Blinton could only have admired ‘Tirante il Bianco’ from a distance. But now, the demon inspiring him, he rushed into the lists, and challenged the great Mr. —, the Napoleon of bookselling. The price had already reached five hundred pounds.

“Six hundred,” cried Blinton.

“Guineas,” said the great Mr. —.

“Seven hundred,” screamed Blinton.

“Guineas,” replied the other.

This arithmetical dialogue went on till even Mr. — struck his flag, with a sigh, when the maddened Blinton had said “Six thousand.” The cheers of the audience rewarded the largest bid ever made for any book. As if he had not done enough, the Stranger now impelled Blinton to contend with Mr. — for every expensive work that appeared. The audience naturally fancied that Blinton was in the earlier stage of softening of the brain, when a man conceives himself to have inherited boundless wealth, and is determined to live up to it. The hammer fell for the last time. Blinton owed some fifty thousand pounds, and exclaimed audibly, as the influence of the fiend died out, “I am a ruined man.”

“Then your books must be sold,” cried the Stranger, and, leaping on a chair, he addressed the audience:—

“Gentlemen, I invite you to Mr. Blinton’s sale, which will immediately take place. The collection contains some very remarkable early English poets, many first editions of the French classics, most of the rarer Aldines, and a singular assortment of Americana.”

In a moment, as if by magic, the shelves round the room were filled with Blinton’s books, all tied up in big lots of some thirty volumes each. His early Molières were fastened to old French dictionaries and school-books. His Shakespeare quartos were in the same lot with tattered railway novels. His copy (almost unique) of Richard Barnfield’s much too ‘Affectionate Shepheard’ was coupled with odd volumes of ‘Chips from a German Workshop’ and a cheap, imperfect example of ‘Tom Brown’s School-Days.’ Hookes’s ‘Amanda’ was at the bottom of a lot of American devotional works, where it kept company with an Elzevir Tacitus and the Aldine ‘Hypnerotomachia.’ The auctioneer put up lot after lot, and Blinton plainly saw that the whole affair was a “knock-out.” His most treasured spoils were parted with at the price of waste paper. It is an awful thing to be present at one’s own sale. No man would bid above a few shillings. Well did Blinton know that after the knock-out the plunder would be shared among the grinning bidders. At last his ‘Adonais,’ uncut, bound by Lortic, went, in company with some old ‘Bradshaws,’ the ‘Court Guide’ of 1881, and an odd volume of the ‘Sunday at Home,’ for sixpence. The Stranger smiled a smile of peculiar malignity. Blinton leaped up to protest; the room seemed to shake around him, but words would not come to his lips.

Then he heard a familiar voice observe, as a familiar grasp shook his shoulder,—

“Tom, Tom, what a nightmare you are enjoying!”

He was in his own arm-chair, where he had fallen asleep after dinner, and Mrs. Blinton was doing her best to arouse him from his awful vision. Beside him lay ‘L’Enfer du Bibliophile, vu et décrit par Charles Asselineau.’ (Paris: Tardieu, MDCCCLX.)

* * * * *

If this were an ordinary tract, I should have to tell how Blinton’s eyes were opened, how he gave up book-collecting, and took to gardening, or politics, or something of that sort. But truth compels me to admit that Blinton’s repentance had vanished by the end of the week, when he was discovered marking M. Claudin’s catalogue, surreptitiously, before breakfast. Thus, indeed, end all our remorses. “Lancelot falls to his own love again,” as in the romance. Much, and justly, as theologians decry a death-bed repentance, it is, perhaps, the only repentance that we do not repent of. All others leave us ready, when occasion comes, to fall to our old love again; and may that love never be worse than the taste for old books! Once a collector, always a collector. _Moi qui parle_, I have sinned, and struggled, and fallen. I have thrown catalogues, unopened, into the waste-paper basket. I have withheld my feet from the paths that lead to Sotheby’s and to Puttick’s. I have crossed the street to avoid a book-stall. In fact, like the prophet Nicholas, “I have been known to be steady for weeks at a time.” And then the fatal moment of temptation has arrived, and I have succumbed to the soft seductions of Eisen, or Cochin, or an old book on Angling. Probably Grolier was thinking of such weaknesses when he chose his devices _Tanquam Ventus_, and _quisque suos patimur Manes_. Like the wind we are blown about, and, like the people in the Æneid, we are obliged to suffer the consequences of our own extravagance.

_BALLADE OF THE UNATTAINABLE_.

THE Books I cannot hope to buy,
Their phantoms round me waltz and wheel,
They pass before the dreaming eye,
Ere Sleep the dreaming eye can seal.
A kind of literary reel
They dance; how fair the bindings shine!
Prose cannot tell them what I feel,—
The Books that never can be mine!

There frisk Editions rare and shy,
Morocco clad from head to heel;
Shakspearian quartos; Comedy
As first she flashed from Richard Steele;
And quaint De Foe on Mrs. Veal;
And, lord of landing net and line,
Old Izaak with his fishing creel,—
The Books that never can be mine!

Incunables! for you I sigh,
Black letter, at thy founts I kneel,
Old tales of Perrault’s nursery,
For you I’d go without a meal!
For Books wherein did Aldus deal
And rare Galliot du Pré I pine.
The watches of the night reveal
The Books that never can be mine!

ENVOY.

Prince, bear a hopeless Bard’s appeal;
Reverse the rules of Mine and Thine;
Make it legitimate to steal
The Books that never can be mine!

_LADY BOOK-LOVERS_.

THE biographer of Mrs. Aphra Behn refutes the vulgar error that “a Dutchman cannot love.” Whether or not a lady can love books is a question that may not be so readily settled. Mr. Ernest Quentin Bauchart has contributed to the discussion of this problem by publishing a bibliography, in two quarto volumes, of books which have been in the libraries of famous beauties of old, queens and princesses of France. There can be no doubt that these ladies were possessors of exquisite printed books and manuscripts wonderfully bound, but it remains uncertain whether the owners, as a rule, were bibliophiles; whether their hearts were with their treasures. Incredible as it may seem to us now, literature was highly respected in the past, and was even fashionable. Poets were in favour at court, and Fashion decided that the great must possess books, and not only books, but books produced in the utmost perfection of art, and bound with all the skill at the disposal of Clovis Eve, and Padeloup, and Duseuil. Therefore, as Fashion gave her commands, we cannot hastily affirm that the ladies who obeyed were really book-lovers. In our more polite age, Fashion has decreed that ladies shall smoke, and bet, and romp, but it would be premature to assert that all ladies who do their duty in these matters are born romps, or have an unaffected liking for cigarettes. History, however, maintains that many of the renowned dames whose books are now the most treasured of literary relics were actually inclined to study as well as to pleasure, like Marguerite de Valois and the Comtesse de Verrue, and even Madame de Pompadour. Probably books and arts were more to this lady’s liking than the diversions by which she beguiled the tedium of Louis XV.; and many a time she would rather have been quiet with her plays and novels than engaged in conscientiously conducted but distasteful revels.

Like a true Frenchman, M. Bauchart has only written about French lady book-lovers, or about women who, like Mary Stuart, were more than half French. Nor would it be easy for an English author to name, outside the ranks of crowned heads, like Elizabeth, any Englishwomen of distinction who had a passion for the material side of literature, for binding, and first editions, and large paper, and engravings in early “states.” The practical sex, when studious, is like the same sex when fond of equestrian exercise. “A lady says, ‘My heyes, he’s an ’orse, and he must go,’” according to Leech’s groom. In the same way, a studious girl or matron says, “This is a book,” and reads it, if read she does, without caring about the date, or the state, or the publisher’s name, or even very often about the author’s. I remember, before the publication of a novel now celebrated, seeing a privately printed vellum-bound copy on large paper in the hands of a literary lady. She was holding it over the fire, and had already made the vellum covers curl wide open like the shells of an afflicted oyster.

When I asked what the volume was, she explained that “It is a book which a poor man has written, and he’s had it printed to see whether some one won’t be kind enough to publish it.” I ventured, perhaps pedantically, to point out that the poor man could not be so very poor, or he would not have made so costly an experiment on Dutch paper. But the lady said she did not know how that might be, and she went on toasting the experiment. In all this there is a fine contempt for everything but the spiritual aspect of literature; there is an aversion to the mere coquetry and display of morocco and red letters, and the toys which amuse the minds of men. Where ladies have caught “the Bibliomania,” I fancy they have taken this pretty fever from the other sex. But it must be owned that the books they have possessed, being rarer and more romantic, are even more highly prized by amateurs than examples from the libraries of Grolier, and Longepierre, and D’Hoym. M. Bauchart’s book is a complete guide to the collector of these expensive relics. He begins his dream of fair women who have owned books with the pearl of the Valois, Marguerite d’Angoulême, the sister of Francis I. The remains of her library are chiefly devotional manuscripts. Indeed, it is to be noted that all these ladies, however frivolous, possessed the most devout and pious books, and whole collections of prayers copied out by the pen, and decorated with miniatures. Marguerite’s library was bound in morocco, stamped with a crowned M in _interlacs_ sown with daisies, or, at least, with conventional flowers which may have been meant for daisies. If one could choose, perhaps the most desirable of the specimens extant is ‘Le Premier Livre du Prince des Poètes, Homère,’ in Salel’s translation. For this translation Ronsard writes a prologue, addressed to the _manes_ of Salel, in which he complains that he is ridiculed for his poetry. He draws a characteristic picture of Homer and Salel in Elysium, among the learned lovers:

qui parmi les fleurs devisent
Au giron de leur dame.

Marguerite’s manuscript copy of the First Book of the Iliad is a small quarto, adorned with daisies, fleurs de-lis, and the crowned M. It is in the Duc d’Aumale’s collection at Chantilly. The books of Diane de Poitiers are more numerous and more famous. When first a widow she stamped her volumes with a laurel springing from a tomb, and the motto, “Sola vivit in illo.” But when she consoled herself with Henri II. she suppressed the tomb, and made the motto meaningless. Her crescent shone not only on her books, but on the palace walls of France, in the Louvre, Fontainebleau, and Anet, and her initial D. is inextricably interlaced with the H. of her royal lover. Indeed, Henri added the D to his own cypher, and this must have been so embarrassing for his wife Catherine, that people have good-naturedly tried to read the curves of the D’s as C’s. The D’s, and the crescents, and the bows of his Diana are impressed even on the covers of Henri’s Book of Hours. Catherine’s own cypher is a double C enlaced with an H, or double K’s (Katherine) combined in the same manner. These, unlike the D.H., are surmounted with a crown—the one advantage which the wife possessed over the favourite. Among Diane’s books are various treatises on medicines and on surgery, and plenty of poetry and Italian novels. Among the books exhibited at the British Museum in glass cases is Diane’s copy of Bembo’s ‘History of Venice.’ An American collector, Mr. Barlow, of New York, is happy enough to possess her ‘Singularitez de la France Antarctique’ (Antwerp, 1558).

Catherine de Medicis got splendid books on the same terms as foreign pirates procure English novels—she stole them. The Marshal Strozzi, dying in the French service, left a noble collection, on which Catherine laid her hands. Brantôme says that Strozzi’s son often expressed to him a candid opinion about this transaction. What with her own collection and what with the Marshal’s, Catherine possessed about four thousand volumes. On her death they were in peril of being seized by her creditors, but her almoner carried them to his own house, and De Thou had them placed in the royal library. Unluckily it was thought wiser to strip the books of the coats with Catherine’s compromising device, lest her creditors should single them out, and take them away in their pockets. Hence, books with her arms and cypher are exceedingly rare. At the sale of the collections of the Duchesse de Berry, a Book of Hours of Catherine’s was sold for £2,400.

Mary Stuart of Scotland was one of the lady book-lovers whose taste was more than a mere following of the fashion. Some of her books, like one of Marie Antoinette’s, were the companions of her captivity, and still bear the sad complaints which she entrusted to these last friends of fallen royalty. Her note-book, in which she wrote her Latin prose exercises when a girl, still survives, bound in red morocco, with the arms of France. In a Book of Hours, now the property of the Czar, may be partly deciphered the quatrains which she composed in her sorrowful years, but many of them are mutilated by the binder’s shears. The Queen used the volume as a kind of album: it contains the signatures of the “Countess of Schrewsbury” (as M. Bauchart has it), of Walsingham, of the Earl of Sussex, and of Charles Howard, Earl of Nottingham. There is also the signature, “Your most infortunat, ARBELLA SEYMOUR;” and “Fr. Bacon.”

This remarkable manuscript was purchased in Paris, during the Revolution, by Peter Dubrowsky, who carried it to Russia. Another Book of Hours of the Queen’s bears this inscription, in a sixteenth-century hand: “Ce sont les Heures de Marie Setuart Renne. Marguerite de Blacuod de Rosay.” In De Blacuod it is not very easy to recognise “Blackwood.” Marguerite was probably the daughter of Adam Blackwood, who wrote a volume on Mary Stuart’s sufferings (Edinburgh, 1587).

The famous Marguerite de Valois, the wife of Henri IV., had certainly a noble library, and many beautifully bound books stamped with daisies are attributed to her collections. They bear the motto, “Expectata non eludet,” which appears to refer, first to the daisy (“Margarita”), which is punctual in the spring, or rather is “the constellated flower that never sets,” and next, to the lady, who will “keep tryst.” But is the lady Marguerite de Valois? Though the books have been sold at very high prices as relics of the leman of La Mole, it seems impossible to demonstrate that they were ever on her shelves, that they were bound by Clovis Eve from her own design. “No mention is made of them in any contemporary document, and the judicious are reduced to conjectures.” Yet they form a most important collection, systematically bound, science and philosophy in citron morocco, the poets in green, and history and theology in red. In any case it is absurd to explain “Expectata non eludet” as a reference to the lily of the royal arms, which appears on the centre of the daisy-pied volumes. The motto, in that case, would run, “Expectata (lilia) non eludent.” As it stands, the feminine adjective, “expectata,” in the singular, must apply either to the lady who owned the volumes, or to the “Margarita,” her emblem, or to both. Yet the ungrammatical rendering is that which M. Bauchart suggests. Many of the books, Marguerite’s or not, were sold at prices over £100 in London, in 1884 and 1883. The Macrobius, and Theocritus, and Homer are in the Cracherode collection at the British Museum. The daisy crowned Ronsard went for £430 at the Beckford sale. These prices will probably never be reached again.

If Anne of Austria, the mother of Louis XIV., was a bibliophile, she may be suspected of acting on the motive, “Love me, love my books.” About her affection for Cardinal Mazarin there seems to be no doubt: the Cardinal had a famous library, and his royal friend probably imitated his tastes. In her time, and on her volumes, the originality and taste of the skilled binder, Le Gascon, begin to declare themselves. The fashionable passion for lace, to which La Fontaine made such sacrifices, affected the art of book decorations, and Le Gascon’s beautiful patterns of gold points and dots are copies of the productions of Venice. The Queen-Mother’s books include many devotional treatises, for, whatever other fashions might come and go, piety was always constant before the Revolution. Anne of Austria seems to have been particularly fond of the lives and works of Saint Theresa, and Saint François de Sales, and John of the Cross. But she was not unread in the old French poets, such as Coquillart; she condescended to Ariosto; she had that dubious character, Théophile de Viaud, beautifully bound; she owned the Rabelais of 1553; and, what is particularly interesting, M. de Lignerolles possesses her copy of ‘L’Eschole des Femmes, Comédie par J. B. P. Molière. Paris: Guillaume de Luynes, 1663.’ In 12°, red morocco, gilt edges, and the Queen’s arms on the covers. This relic is especially valuable when we remember that ‘L’Ecole des Femmes’ and Arnolphe’s sermon to Agnès, and his comic threats of future punishment first made envy take the form of religious persecution. The devout Queen-Mother was often appealed to by the enemies of Molière, yet Anne of Austria had not only seen his comedy, but possessed this beautiful example of the first edition. M. Paul Lacroix supposes that this copy was offered to the Queen-Mother by Molière himself. The frontispiece (Arnolphe preaching to Agnès) is thought to be a portrait of Molière, but in the reproduction in M. Louis Lacour’s edition it is not easy to see any resemblance. Apparently Anne did not share the views, even in her later years, of the converted Prince de Conty, for several comedies and novels remain stamped with her arms and device.

The learned Marquise de Rambouillet, the parent of all the ‘Précieuses,’ must have owned a good library, but nothing is chronicled save her celebrated book of prayers and meditations, written out and decorated by Jarry. It is bound in red morocco, _doublé_ with green, and covered with V’s in gold. The Marquise composed the prayers for her own use, and Jarry was so much struck with their beauty that he asked leave to introduce them into the Book of Hours which he had to copy, “for the prayers are often so silly,” said he, “that I am ashamed to write them out.”

Here is an example of the devotions which Jarry admired, a prayer to Saint Louis. It was published in ‘Miscellanies Bibliographiques’ by M. Prosper Blanchemain.

PRIÈRE À SAINT-LOUIS,
ROY DE FRANCE.

Grand Roy, bien que votre couronne ayt esté des plus esclatantes de
la Terre, celle que vous portez dans le ciel est incomparablement
plus précieuse. L’une estoit perissable l’autre est immortelle et
ces lys dont la blancheur se pouvoit ternir, sont maintenant
incorruptibles. Vostre obeissance envers vostre mère; vostre justice
envers vos sujets; et vos guerres contre les infideles, vous ont
acquis la veneration de tous les peuples; et la France doit à vos
travaux et à vostre piété l’inestimable tresor de la sanglante et
glorieuse couronne du Sauveur du monde. Priez-le incomparable Saint
qu’il donne une paix perpetuëlle au Royaume dont vous avez porté le
sceptre; qu’il le préserve d’hérésie; qu’il y face toûjours regner
saintement vostre illustre Sang; et que tous ceux qui ont l’honneur
d’en descendre soient pour jamais fidèles à son Eglise.

The daughter of the Marquise, the fair Julie, heroine of that “long courting” by M. de Montausier, survives in those records as the possessor of ‘La Guirlande de Julie,’ the manuscript book of poems by eminent hands. But this manuscript seems to have been all the library of Julie; therein she could constantly read of her own perfections. To be sure she had also ‘L’Histoire de Gustave Adolphe,’ a hero for whom, like Major Dugald Dalgetty, she cherished a supreme devotion. In the ‘Guirlande’ Chapelain’s verses turn on the pleasing fancy that the Protestant Lion of the North, changed into a flower (like Paul Limayrac in M. Banville’s ode), requests Julie to take pity on his altered estate:

Sois pitoyable à ma langueur;
Et si je n’ay place en ton cœur
Que je l’aye au moins sur ta teste.

These verses were reckoned consummate.

The ‘Guirlande’ is still, with happier fate than attends most books, in the hands of the successors of the Duc and Duchesse de Montausier.

Like Julie, Madame de Maintenon was a _précieuse_, but she never had time to form a regular library. Her books, however, were bound by Duseuil, a binder immortal in the verse of Pope; or it might be more correct to say that Madame de Maintenon’s own books are seldom distinguishable from those of her favourite foundation, St. Cyr. The most interesting is a copy of the first edition of ‘Esther,’ in quarto (1689), bound in red morocco, and bearing, in Racine’s hand, “_A Madame la Marquise de Maintenon_, _offert avec respect_,—_RACINE_.”

Doubtless Racine had the book bound before he presented it. “People are discontented,” writes his son Louis, “if you offer them a book in a simple marbled paper cover.” I could wish that this worthy custom were restored, for the sake of the art of binding, and also because amateur poets would be more chary of their presentation copies. It is, no doubt, wise to turn these gifts with their sides against the inner walls of bookcases, to be bulwarks against the damp, but the trouble of acknowledging worthless presents from strangers is considerable. {145}

Another interesting example of Madame de Maintenon’s collections is Dacier’s ‘Remarques Critiques sur les Œuvres d’Horace,’ bearing the arms of Louis XIV., but with his wife’s signature on the fly-leaf (1681).

Of Madame de Montespan, ousted from the royal favour by Madame de Maintenon, who “married into the family where she had been governess,” there survives one bookish relic of interest. This is ‘Œuvres Diverses par un auteur de sept ans,’ in quarto, red morocco, printed on vellum, and with the arms of the mother of the little Duc du Maine (1678). When Madame de Maintenon was still playing mother to the children of the king and of Madame de Montespan, she printed those “works” of her eldest pupil.

These ladies were only bibliophiles by accident, and were devoted, in the first place, to pleasure, piety, or ambition. With the Comtesse de Verrue, whose epitaph will be found on an earlier page, we come to a genuine and even fanatical collector. Madame de Verrue (1670–1736) got every kind of diversion out of life, and when she ceased to be young and fair, she turned to the joys of “shopping.” In early years, “pleine de cœur, elle le donna sans comptes.” In later life, she purchased, or obtained on credit, everything that caught her fancy, also _sans comptes_. “My aunt,” says the Duc de Luynes, “was always buying, and never baulked her fancy.” Pictures, books, coins, jewels, engravings, gems (over 8,000), tapestries, and furniture were all alike precious to Madame de Verrue. Her snuff-boxes defied computation; she had them in gold, in tortoise-shell, in porcelain, in lacquer, and in jasper, and she enjoyed the delicate fragrance of sixty different sorts of snuff. Without applauding the smoking of cigarettes in drawing-rooms, we may admit that it is less repulsive than steady applications to tobacco in Madame de Verrue’s favourite manner.

The Countess had a noble library, for old tastes survived in her commodious heart, and new tastes she anticipated. She possessed ‘The Romance of the Rose,’ and ‘Villon,’ in editions of Galliot du Pré (1529–1533) undeterred by the satire of Boileau. She had examples of the ‘Pleïade,’ though they were not again admired in France till 1830. She was also in the most modern fashion of to-day, for she had the beautiful quarto of La Fontaine’s ‘Contes,’ and Bouchier’s illustrated Molière (large paper). And, what I envy her more, she had Perrault’s ‘Fairy Tales,’ in blue morocco—the blue rose of the folklorist who is also a book-hunter. It must also be confessed that Madame de Verrue had a large number of books such as are usually kept under lock and key, books which her heirs did not care to expose at the sale of her library. Once I myself (_moi chétif_) owned a novel in blue morocco, which had been in the collection of Madame de Verrue. In her old age this exemplary woman invented a peculiarly comfortable arm-chair, which, like her novels, was covered with citron and violet morocco; the nails were of silver. If Madame de Verrue has met the Baroness Bernstein, their conversation in the Elysian Fields must be of the most gallant and interesting description.

Another literary lady of pleasure, Madame de Pompadour, can only be spoken of with modified approval. Her great fault was that she did not check the decadence of taste and sense in the art of bookbinding. In her time came in the habit of binding books (if binding it can be called) with flat backs, without the nerves and sinews that are of the very essence of book-covers. Without these no binding can be permanent, none can secure the lasting existence of a volume. It is very deeply to be deplored that by far the most accomplished living English artist in bookbinding has reverted to this old and most dangerous heresy. The most original and graceful tooling is of much less real value than permanence, and a book bound with a flat back, without _nerfs_, might practically as well not be bound at all. The practice was the herald of the French and may open the way for the English Revolution. Of what avail were the ingenious mosaics of Derome to stem the tide of change, when the books whose sides they adorned were not really _bound_ at all? Madame de Pompadour’s books were of all sorts, from the inevitable works of devotions to devotions of another sort, and the ‘Hours’ of Erycina Ridens. One of her treasures had singular fortunes, a copy of ‘Daphnis and Chloe,’ with the Regent’s illustrations, and those of Cochin and Eisen (Paris, quarto, 1757, red morocco). The covers are adorned with billing and cooing doves, with the arrows of Eros, with burning hearts, and sheep and shepherds. Eighteen years ago this volume was bought for 10 francs in a village in Hungary. A bookseller gave £8 for it in Paris. M. Bauchart paid for it £150; and as it has left his shelves, probably he too made no bad bargain. Madame de Pompadour’s ‘Apology for Herodotus’ (La Haye, 1735) has also its legend. It belonged to M. Paillet, who coveted a glorified copy of the ‘Pastissier François,’ in M. Bauchart’s collection. M Paillet swopped it, with a number of others, for the ‘Pastissier:’

J’avais ‘L’Apologie
Pour Hérodote,’ en reliûre ancienne, amour
De livre provenant de chez la Pompadour
Il me le soutira! {148}

Of Marie Antoinette, with whom our lady book-lovers of the old _régime_ must close, there survive many books. She had a library in the Tuileries, as well as at le petit Trianon. Of all her great and varied collections, none is now so valued as her little book of prayers, which was her consolation in the worst of all her evil days, in the Temple and the Conciergerie. The book is ‘Office de la Divine Providence’ (Paris, 1757, green morocco). On the fly-leaf the Queen wrote, some hours before her death, these touching lines: “Ce 16 Octobre, à 4 h. ½ du matin. Mon Dieu! ayez pitié de moi! Mes yeux n’ont plus de larmes pour prier pour vous, mes pauvres enfants. Adieu, adieu!—MARIE ANTOINETTE.”

There can be no sadder relic of a greater sorrow, and the last consolation of the Queen did not escape the French popular genius for cruelty and insult. The arms on the covers of the prayer-book have been cut out by some fanatic of Equality and Fraternity.

FOOTNOTES

{12} See illustrations, pp. 114, 115.

{19} “Slate” is a professional term for a severe criticism. Clearly the word is originally “slat,” a narrow board of wood, with which a person might be beaten.

{66} _Histoire des Intrigues Amoureuses de Molière_, _et de celles de sa femme_. (_A la Sphère_.) A Francfort, chez Frédéric Arnaud, MDCXCVII. This anonymous tract has actually been attributed to Racine. The copy referred to is marked with a large N in red, with an eagle’s head.

{67a} _The Lady of the Lake_, 1810.

_The Lay of the Last Minstrel_, 1806.

“To Mrs. Robert Laidlaw, Peel. From the Author.”

{67b} _Dictys Cretensis_. Apud Lambertum Roulland. Lut. Paris., 1680. In red morocco, with the arms of Colbert.

{67c} _L. Annæi Senecæ Opera Omnia_. Lug. Bat., apud Elzevirios. 1649. With book-plate of the Duke of Sussex.

{67d} _Stratonis Epigrammata_. Altenburgi, 1764. Straton bound up in one volume with Epictetus! From the Beckford library.

{67e} _Opera Helii Eobani Hessi_. Yellow morocco, with the first arms of De Thou. Includes a poem addressed “LANGE, _decus meum_.” Quantity of penultimate “Eobanus” taken for granted, _metri gratiâ_.

{68a} _La Journée du Chrétien_. Coutances, 1831. With inscription, “Léon Gambetta. Rue St. Honoré. Janvier 1, 1848.”

{68b} _Villoison’s Homer_. Venice, 1788. With Tessier’s ticket and Schlegel’s book-plate.

{68c} _Les Essais de Michel_, _Seigneur de Montaigne_. “Pour François le Febvre de Lyon, 1695.” With autograph of Gul. Drummond, and cipresso e palma.

{68d} “The little old foxed Molière,” once the property of William Pott, unknown to fame.

{73} That there ever were such editors is much disputed. The story may be a fiction of the age of the Ptolemies.

{74} Or, more easily, in Maury’s _Religions de la Grèce_.

{94} See Essay on ‘Lady Book-Lovers.’

{102} See Essay on ‘Lady Book-Lovers.’

{107} For a specimen of Madame Pompadour’s binding see overleaf. She had another Rabelais in calf, lately to be seen in a shop in Pall Mall.

{119a} Mr. Payne does not give the date of the edition from which he copies the cut. Apparently it is of the fifteenth century.

{119b} Reproduced in _The Library_, p. 94.

{145} Country papers, please copy. Poets at a distance will kindly accept this intimation.

{148} Bibliothèque d’un Bibliophile. Lille, 1885.