Leaf 36: Quintus Titurius Sabinus. ('Odet de Foues, Sieur de Lautrec, aged 41 years.') Three-quarters full, turned to the left.
Leaf 42: Iccius. ('Le mareschal de Chabanes, seigneur de la Palice, aged 57 years.') Three-quarters full, turned to the left, expression slightly haughty.
Leaf 52: Lucius Aruculeius Cotta. ('Anne de Montmorency, aged 22 years, afterwards connestable de France.')
Leaf 73: Publius Sextius Baculus. ('Le mareschal de Fleuranges, son of Robert de la Marche, first seigneur de Sedan, aged 24 years.') Three-quarters full, turned to the left.
Leaf 76 verso: Publius Crassus. ('Le sieur de Tournon who was killed at the battle of Pavia, aged 36 years.') Three-quarters full, turned to the left.
On the verso of leaf 89 we find these words: 'Thus Cæsar made an end of speaking and forthwith disappeared. The radiant Diana, who knew the paths of the forest of Bièvre, and of all time was privy to and understood the laws of the chase, remounted, and by so straight a course led the King, who had lost the dogs, that within a few hours, near the forest of Fontainebleau, he saw them hunting better than before. And he was the first of all at the death of the stag, but he had with him only pretty Arbault and the beautiful Greffière, for Diana and Aurora had left him and had gone their ways.'
The two dogs are represented in the miniature; they are attacking the stag, while the King makes ready to stab him.
This volume, containing 98 leaves, is bound in black morocco, which has grown rusty; it bears these words stamped in the leather: 'Tomus Secundus.' It is catalogued in the Supplément Français, as no. 1328. Its history, as told among the habitués of the Bibliothèque Nationale, is as follows: M. Van-Praët appeared at the Conservatoire one day with an exultant air; he had this fascinating manuscript in his hand, and announced that he had purchased it for the Bibliothèque for 1200 francs. He expected to gladden the hearts of his comrades, to call forth expressions of gratitude; far from it; on the contrary, they found fault both with that method of purchasing, without authority, and with the price that he had paid. M. Van-Praët made haste to banish the scruples of his inflexible directors, and to put an end to the unpleasant discussion that was beginning, by declaring that the purchase had been made for himself and not for the Bibliothèque; then, when the meeting was adjourned, he hastened to his friends the brothers Debure, and, with a bursting heart, told them of his misadventure. They appreciated Van-Praët's regrets too thoroughly to try to calm them; but they knew also that he was not rich enough to keep the manuscript, and they bought for their own little collection, at the price that he had paid, that charming product of French art, still bleeding from the reception that it had met with at the hands of the great so-called 'national' collection. Years and years had passed since this strange performance, when, in 1852, a small package was brought to M. Naudet, with the information that M. Debure, by his last will, had ordered that this manuscript, embellished with paintings by Godefroy, which had been purchased for the Bibliothèque and spurned by it, should be restored to it as its property.
One does not know which to admire more in this testamentary disposition of the famous bookseller—the keenness of his irony or the nobility of his act. Without exerting itself overmuch to decide that point the Conservatoire of the Bibliothèque Impériale welcomed the prodigal child and deposited it in the Supplément Français. But, with a lingering remnant of spite, its light was hidden under the bushel of 'la réserve'; which is one way of preventing people from having access to it with the facility which assists investigations, under the protection of that liberality which is one of our claims to honour among foreign nations, and which the government of the Bibliothèque should have preserved, even at the price of the inconvenience that it might have caused.