BOOK V. The Imperial Library at Paris. History of the Chapter I. Le Prince's Library, (founded on the Essay prefixed to great Catalogue.) drawn for the materials of this outline of the history of the Royal Library.) The author concludes his essay by an elaborate description, both of the buildings of the Library and of their more prominent contents. The number of the MSS. he states to be upwards of 25,000, including a matchless collection on the History of reactie) France. Of the Foreign MSS., he represents those in Hebrew as the most considerable. He proceeds to describe in detail, and in the chronological order of their acquisition, the various separate collections, the aggregation of which constituted the MS. Library of the Kings of France. Already it had become the noblest collection in this kind which consummate learning and far-extended research, in union with royal magnificence, had been able to amass. How it was to withstand the perils and to profit by the opportunities of the stern Revolutionary period now fast approaching, we shall see hereafter. During the latter years of the librarianship of Jean Frédéric Bignon, the growth of the Library, in all its departments was to some extent, and of necessity, checked by those gathering financial emberassments which had so important a share in hastening the Revolution. Yet at his death, in 1784, the number of the crude materials for a continuation of the narrative to the present time. That no such continuation is attempted is perhaps less to be regretted than that some obvious oversights and errors of the original are permitted to remain. Thus, for example, at p. 60 the Abbé de Louvois is confounded with his father the Minister, and at page 72 we read of "John II." King of England. At p. 105, after the words " "Bibliothèque du Roi", the original continues "ainsi qu'on le voit par l'inscription placée sur la porte royale." These words are left out in the reprint, and yet the next sentence begins "Cette porte" etc. BOOK V. Chapter I. Library at Paris. printed books had approached to nearly 200,000 vo The Imperial lumes. Probably in extent, and unquestionably in intrinsic value, it was already the foremost Library then existing. Effects of the §. 3. HISTORY OF THE ROYAL LIBRARY FROM THE APPOINTMENT OF LEFEVRE D'ORMESSON DE NOYSEAU TO THE DEATH OF JOSEPH VAN PRAET, (1784-1836.) Jean Frédéric Bignon was succeeded in his office as head of the Royal Library by Lefèvre d'Ormesson de Noyseau, a 'Premier President' who, like so many others who had previously thrown lustre on that dignity, was an ardent lover of books. But the various changes, which were so rapidly induced by the events of the Revolution, long precluded that dominant influence of one ruling mind which had hither to been so observable in the history of the Royal Library. It is curious, however, to note that the year which was marked by the death of the last of the Librarians under the old system, was also that of the entrance into the Royal Library of Joseph Van Praet, who in later years became, virtually though not nominally, the governing power of the institution. The first direct effect of the Revolution of 1789 was a diminution of the funds appropriated to the maintenance and augmentation of the Library. In the two preceding years, 1788 and 1789, the revenue assigned to it had been respectively 130,000 and 140,000 livres, or, on the average, £5625 sterling. At first, the Constituent Assembly reduced this sum to 110,000 livres EFFECT OF THE REVOLUTIONARY STORMS. 271 BOOK V. (£4583), but that snm was proved to be inadequate, and in 1791 a special grant was made of 100,000 livres. The Imperial Another step was taken as early as November 1789 which was destined to have extensive and enduring results. By Royal letters patent it was decreed that Catalogues of the Libraries and Archives of Chapters and Monasteries should be officially registered. In 1792, Lefèvre d'Ormesson de Noyseau was deprived of his office, and was succeeded by Carra and Champfort, both of whom, in the sequel, together with the venerable Barthélémy (Keeper of the Medals) and the amiable Van Praet, were in turn denounced and imprisoned. The last named, after his liberation, had to conceal himself for three months. Carra-of whom Lamartine has said that he was one of those men, "who have a thirst for glory without understanding what it is, who fling themselves into the torrent of the dominant ideas of the day, float upon its surface, and then are horrified at the sudden perception that it is sweeping them into crime",-perished on the scaffold as a Girondist (one of the famous 'Twenty two'); and the same fate subsequently befel Girey-Dupré, Keeper of the MSS., who at an earlier period of 'the Terror' had already, by the interposition of Vergniaud, narrowly escaped it. Champfort, more unhappy still, in the horror which seized him on a second arrest, attempted to kill himself in one of the galleries of the Library, and though he recovered from his wounds, soon died, as the phrase is, of "a broken heart." D'Ormesson, his Chapter I. Library at Paris. BOOK V. predecessor also perished on the Revolutionary Scaffold The Imperial during the height of the 'Terror'. Chapter I. Library at Paris. During the shortlived ascendancy of the wretched faction of Robespierre the great National Library of France, in common with the Provincial Libraries, narrowly escaped a most destructive outbreak of Vandalism. A decree was actually drawn up which declared that "the books of the Public Libraries of Paris, and of the Departments, could no longer be permitted to offend the eyes of Republicans by shameful marks of servitude, and that all such must be immediately effaced; Fleur-de-lis, for example, and armorial bearings, whether on the bindings, or in other parts of books, together with all prefaces and dedications addressed to kings or nobles must disappear." To Antoine Auguste Renouard, not less distinguished for his accomplishments as a man of letters, than for his skill and enterprise as a bookseller and publisher, is mainly owing the preservation of the French Libraries from irreparable injury, and of the French people from indelible of the 'Reign disgrace. He interposed with remarkable energy, and at no small personal risk, and was zealously seconded by Messrs. Chardin and Didot (l'aîné) in the newspapers, as well as by Chénier Thibaut and Romme in the Convention. The Vandalism of Terror.' Champollion Figéac has said-somewhat too broadly, although he doubtless intended the assertion to be taken in a limited sense, which the facts might warrant,— "The truth, as regards the National Library, is that it THE COMMISSION OF HUBERT PASCAL AMEILHON. 273 BOOK V. Chapter I. Library at Paris. of Hubert Pascal Ameilhon. lost nothing under the domination of the Vandals, not even when it had an actor for its Librarian." It is very The Imperial certain, however that, if its shelves were not actively despoiled, supplies which under better auspices would inevitably have found their way to them, were cut off in most vandalic fashion. In 1793, Hubert Pascal Ameilhon (whose thirty years of faithful service as Librarian of the Hôtel de Ville, ought to have spared him the insulting offers of that degrading appointment which in a moment of weakness he stooped to accept,) was nominated a 'Commissioner for the Examination of Pa- The Commission tents of Nobility &c.', and in that capacity he thus wrote to the Syndical Attorney General of the Department of Paris:- "I am instructed to apprize you that the Commissions for examining the documents in the 'Cabinet of the late King's Orders', are ready to deliver to the Commissaries of the Department two hundred and seventy volumes and cartons which remain to be destroyed;" and on another occasion: "I send you an account of the various articles which remain to be burnt, including 128 bound volumes and 34 boxes containing papers relating to the Order of the Holy Ghost, and to other Orders; thirty-four volumes of papers from which was compiled the Armorial générale de la France; one hundred and sixty-six volumes of the 'Le Laboureur Collection', &c., and two volumes of writs of nobility." In September 1795 Villar, Deputy of La Mayenne, presented to the Convention a Report in which he proposed extensive changes in the internal organization of the National Library. "At present", he says, "it is governed by a single head. That does not accord with Vol. II. 18 |