In 'La Renaissance des Arts,' M. de Laborde has published several extracts from the royal accounts relative to this Claude Chappuis.
'To maistre Claude Chappuis, librarian to our said lord, the sum of thirty-three livres five sols tournois, to him ordered to be paid by our said lord, to reimburse him for several small sums by him furnished and paid for the embellishment of books which our said lord hath caused to be brought from Thurin, for the carriage thereof from Fontainebleau to Paris and to Sainct-Germain-en-Laye, and from said Sainct-Germain to Paris and Fontainebleau, and for expense incurred by said Chappuis, say XXXIII L. V. S.'[541]
'To maistre Claude Chappuys, librarian to our said lord, the sum of six times twenty and ten livres, and ten sols tournois to reimburse him for the like sum which he hath paid of his own moneys to a bookseller of Paris named Le Faucheux, for having, by command of our said lord, re-bound and gilded divers books from his library, in the manner and guise of a gospel heretofore bound and gilded by said Le Faucheux, written in letters of gold and ink.'[542]
Doubtless this Claude Chappuis is the same man who belonged to the household of Jean du Bellay, Ambassador to Rome in 1536. Having become librarian to the King, he probably used in gilding the books mentioned in the last quotation, the irons which François I had bought in Venice, as we learn from another account, undated, but a little earlier, preserved, like the others, in the national archives.
'To Loys Alleman, Fleurantin, for sending to Venice for irons to print[543] certain Italian books, and for the cost of such printing, the sum of V livres.'
As for Le Faucheux, mentioned here as a binder, he is evidently Étinnee Roffet, called Le Faucheux, described as binder and librarian to the King on the title-page of the 'Œuvres de Hugues Salel,' which he published, and which was printed at Paris, in octavo, in 1540.[544] He was the son of Pierre Roffet (publisher to the two Marots, father and son), who had for his sign a 'faucheur,' mower.[545]
X
PASSAGES WRITTEN IN LATIN, IN MOST CASES BY TORY, TRANSLATIONS OF WHICH ARE INSERTED IN THE BODY OF THE BOOK.
Godofredus Torinus Bituricus Joanni Rosselletto, literarum amantissimo, S. D. P.[546]