[1] "Essai Historique sur la Bibliotheque du Roi," par M. Le Prince.
[2] This Gilles Malet, who was also the king's reader, had great
strength of character; he is thus described by Christine de
Pise:--"Souverainement bien lisoit, et bien ponttoit, et entendens
homs estoit;" "he read sovereignly well, with good punctuation, and
was an understanding man." She has recorded a personal anecdote of
him. One day a fatal accident happened to his child, but such was the
discipline of official duties, that he did not interrupt his
attendance on the king at the usual hour of reading. The king having
afterwards heard of the accident which had bereaved the father of his
child, observed, "If the intrepidity of this man had not exceeded
that which nature bestows upon ordinary men, his paternal emotion
would not have allowed him to conceal his misfortune."
[3] The reader may form some idea of the discordant arrangement of a
volume of manuscripts by the following entries:--"Un Livre qui
commence de Genesis, et aussi traite des fais Julius Cesar, appelle
Suetoine." "Un Livre en Francois, en un volume, qui ce commence de
Genesis, et traite du fait des Romains, de la vie des SS. Peres
Hermites, et de Merlin."
[4] "Hist. de l'Academie Royale des Inscriptions," tome i. 421, 12mo.
[5] It has, within the last few years, been added to the British
Museum.--ED.
[6] _Dame_ was the lady of the knight; the _Damoiselle_, the wife of
an esquire; _Dameisel_, or _Damoiseau_, was a youth of noble
extraction, but who had not yet attained to knighthood.--Rocquefort,
"Glossaire de la Langue Romane."
[7] Ritson's "Dissertation on Romance and Minstrelsy," lxxxi.
[8] See an "Essay on English Monastic Libraries," by that learned and
ingenious antiquary, the Rev. Joseph Hunter.
[9] Some of these extraordinary window-catalogues of the monastic
library of St. Albans were found in the cloisters and presbytery of
that monastery, and are preserved in the "Monasticon Anglicanum."
[10] Dibdin's "Bibliographical Decameron," iii. 245.