Among the purchasers at the later sale we may notice the witty Esprit Fléchier, who bought several of the lighter Latin poets, being a fashionable versifier himself and a dilettante in matters of binding and typography. In his account of the High Commission in Auvergne, appointed to examine into charges of feudal tyranny, the Abbé tells us how his reputation as a bibliophile was spread by a certain Père Raphael at all the watering-places, and how two learned ladies came to inspect his books and carried off his favourite Ovid. His library was removed to London and sold in the year 1725; and the occasion was of some importance as marking the beginning of the English demand for specimens from Grolier's library.
Archbishop Le Tellier bought fifteen good examples, which he bequeathed in 1709, with all his other books, to the Abbey of St. Geneviève. His whole collection included about 50,000 volumes, mostly dealing with history and the writings of the Fathers. 'I have loved books from my boyhood,' he said, 'and the taste has grown with age.' He bought most of his collection during his travels in Italy, in England, and in Holland; but perhaps the best part of his store came from his tutor Antoine Faure, who left a thousand volumes to the Archbishop, to be selected at the legatee's discretion.
The most valuable portion of Grolier's library was bought by his friend Henri de Mesmes. This included the long series of presentation copies, printed on vellum, and magnificently bound. De Mesmes was a collector with a love of curiosities of all kinds. He seems to have been equally fond of his early specimens of printing, his Flemish and Italian illuminations, and the Arabic and Armenian treatises procured by his agents in the East. His library became a valuable museum which was praised by all the writers of that age, except indeed by François Pithou, who called De Mesmes a literary grave-digger, and mourned over the burial of so many good books in those cold and gloomy sepulchres.
There seems to have been little occasion for this outburst, since the library was open to all who could make a good use of it during the life of Henri de Mesmes and under his son and grandson. Henri de Mesmes the younger, its owner in the third generation, was renowned for his zeal in collecting; he is said to have even procured mss. from the Court of the Great Mogul, dispatched by a French goldsmith at Delhi, who packed them in red cotton and stuffed them into the hollow of a bamboo for safer carriage. One of the finest things in his whole library was the Psalter which Louis ix. had given to Guillaume de Mesmes: it had come by some means into the library at Whitehall; but on the execution of Charles i. the French Ambassador had been able to secure it, and had restored it to the family of the original donee.
The Norman family of Bigot rivalled the race of De Mesmes in their ardour for book-collecting. Jean Bigot in 1649 had a magnificent library of 6000 volumes, partly inherited from his ancestors, and partly collected out of the monastic libraries at Fécamp and Mont St. Michel and other places in that neighbourhood. His son Louis-Emeric took the library as his share of the inheritance: its improvement became the occupation of his life; he made many expeditions after books in foreign countries, but when he was at home his library was the general rendez-vous of all who were interested in literature. The books were left to Robert Bigot upon trusts that were intended to prevent their dispersion. A sale, however, took place in 1706, at which the monastic archives and most of the mss. were purchased by the government.
By some arrangement, of which the history is unknown, the head of the family of De Mesmes was persuaded to allow his books to be included in the Bigot sale. There seems to have been an attempt to disguise the transaction by tearing off the bindings and defacing the coats of arms. The strangest thing about the sale was the fact that no notice was taken of its containing the finest portion of Grolier's library. The splendid Aldines, on vellum, fell into the hands of an ignorant notary with a new room to furnish: and he thought fit to strip off all the bindings, that had been a marvel of Italian art, and to replace them with the gaudy coverings that were more suited to his bourgeois desires.
M. de Lincy remarks that Grolier's books were strangely neglected through a great part of the eighteenth century. At the very end of the period, Count Macarthy had the good taste to include a few of them in his collection of books upon vellum. Mr. Cracherode began, in 1793, to buy all the specimens that came into the market: and the library which he bequeathed to the British Museum contains no less than eighteen fine examples. Eight more were comprised in the magnificent bequest of Mr. Thomas Grenville's library in 1846. There has been a demand for these books in England for more than a century and a half. But when we look at the catalogues of Gaignat or La Vallière they seem to have been altogether disregarded. When Gaignat died in 1768 his collection was regarded as perfect; it was said that 'no one in the commonwealth of letters had ever brought together such a rich and admirable assembly.' Yet he only had one 'Grolier book,' a magnificent copy of Paolo Giovio's book on Roman Fishes, which passed to the Duc de la Vallière, and went for a few livres at his sale. There were only two other specimens in the Duke's library; and they seem to have been treated with equal indifference. M. de Lincy was of opinion that the memory of Grolier was almost entirely forgotten, except in his native city of Lyons. The appearance of his books might be admired by an antiquary here and there; but the classics had gone out of fashion for a time, and the world gave its attention to old poetry, to mediæval romance, and even to 'books of facetiæ.'
Grolier's reputation had mainly depended on his generous patronage of literature. Even the House of Aldus had rejoiced to be the clients of a new Mæcenas. The authors of that time were still too weak to go alone. In the absence of a demand for books it was essential to gain the favour of a great man who might open a way to fame and would at least provide a pension. We have all smiled at the adulations of an ancient preface and the arrogance which too often baulked the poor writer's hopes. D'Israeli reminds us that one of the Popes repaid the translation of a Greek treatise with a few pence that might just have paid for the binding, and of Cardinal Este receiving Ariosto's work with the question—'Where on earth all that rubbish had been collected?' This was but a temporary phase, and literature became free from the burden as soon as the public had learned to read. The Houses of Plantin and the Elzevirs required no help in selling out their cheap editions. A good dedication was still a feather in the patron's cap. Queen Christina considered that she was justly entitled to the patronage of her subjects' works: and Marshal Rantzau, when writers were scarce in Denmark, brought out an anonymous work for the purpose of introducing a preface in which his fame as a book-collector was glorified. But the patron's function was gradually restricted; and at last it was nearly confined to cases where a dedication repaid assistance given in producing an unsaleable book.
The later renown of Grolier must rest on the fact that he invented a new taste. It would have been nothing to buy a few thousand Aldine books, even if the collection included all the first editions, the papers of all sizes, the copies with uncut edges, and specimens of the true misprints. The family of Aldus had a large library of this kind, which was dispersed at Rome by its inheritor in the third generation; but it never attracted much attention, and was generally believed to have been merged in a collection at Pisa. Grolier introduced a fashion depending for its success on a multiplicity of details. He bought books out of large editions just issuing from the press; but he chose out the specimen with the best printing, and the finest paper, if vellum were not forthcoming. The condition was perfect. Like the Count Macarthy he would have no dust or worm-holes: he was as microscopic in his views as the most accurate Parisian bibliophile. The binding was in the best Italian style: a general sobriety was relieved by the brilliancy of certain effects, by the purity of the design, perhaps above all by the perfection of the materials. The book was an object of interest, for its contents, or for historical or personal reasons; but it had also become an objet d'art, like a gem or a figure in porcelain. Grolier preserved his dignity as a bibliophile, and his true followers have not degenerated into collectors of bric-à-brac. It is sufficient to name such men as M. Renouard, the owner of many of Grolier's treasures, or M. Firmin-Didot 'the friend of all good books,' or the collections of Mr. Beckford and Baron Seillière which have been in our own time dispersed. No doubt there is a tendency, especially among French amateurs, to regard books as mere curiosities; and M. Uzanne has drawn an amusing picture of the book-hunter as a chrysalis in his library, destined to find his wings in a flight after mosaic bindings, autographs, original water-colours, or plates in early states.
It is possible, however, to prevent the 'book-buying disease' from developing into a general collector's mania. With the world full of books, we must adopt some special variety for our admiration. One person will choose his library companions for their stateliness and splendid raiment, another for their flavour of antiquity, or the fine company that they kept in old times. Montaigne loved his friends on the shelf, because they always received him kindly and 'blunted the point of his grief.' He turned the volumes over in his round tower within any method or design; 'at one while,' he says, 'I meditate, at another time I make notes, or dictate, as I walk up and down, such whimsies as meet you here.' He cared little about the look of their outsides, but thought a great deal about their readiness to divert him; 'it is the best viaticum I have yet found out for this human pilgrimage, and I pity any man of understanding who is not provided with it.' We have omitted the best reason of all. One who has lived among his books will love them because they are his own. Marie Bashkirtseff expressed the matter well enough in a page of her journal:—'I have a real passion for my books, I arrange them, I count them, I gaze upon them: my heart rejoices in nothing but this heap of old books, and I like to stand off a little and look at them as if they were a picture.'