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.