Julius Cæsar Scaliger, the father of the great philologist, had amused the world by claiming to be the son of Benedetto and Berenice della Scala, to have been a page of the Emperor Maximilian, and to have fought in the Battle of Ravenna; and he pretended that he had become a Cordelier, so as to rise to the Papal throne and expel the Venetians from his dominions. Peiresc was by no means a believer in this extraordinary romance; but he did his best to collect the coins, epitaphs, and pedigrees, which might please his learned correspondent. Crossing the Alps, we are told, 'he viewed the Lake of Geneva and made a tour through a multitude of books'; and returned to Aix with a library and cabinet of gems, 'thinking to himself that he would never see such plenty again.' When he visited Paris in 1605, his first object, he said, was to see the illustrious De Thou, to thank him for his kind letters, and to enquire for messages from Scaliger. 'I cannot express,' he repeats, 'how joyfully he entertained me.' De Thou took down his books for the visitor, and showed him the records under lock and key that contained the secrets of his history, 'opening his very heart, and brimful of a wonderful sincerity.' Next day Casaubon came in from the Bibliothèque du Roi, and showed much pleasure at being introduced to the traveller. His letters of a later date show his high esteem for Peiresc. 'I am eagerly waiting to hear what Scaliger will say about the antiques, but I foresee that you will have room to glean after his harvest.' On another occasion he wrote: 'I do not know if you heard that the Duke of Urbino has sent me the Polybius, but I am indeed most beholden to you for the kindness.'
Ten years afterwards Peiresc came to Paris again, wishing to explore the Oriental treasures in the library of De Mesmes, and to visit the huge collections in the houses of St. Victor and St. Germain. Here he gained the friendship of Pierre Séguier and the elegant Nicolas Rigault, and of Jérome Bignon, the first of a long dynasty of librarians. In England he saw the Bodleian, and talked with Savile, and admired Sir Robert Cotton as 'an honestly curious sort of man.' In Holland his chief business was to visit Scaliger, and we are told that he was careful not to ask about the treatise on squaring the circle, or to hint any doubt as to the truth of the Verona romance. Here at Leyden he read in the great library, soon to be endowed with Scaliger's books, and saw the room of which Heinsius so nobly said: 'In the very bosom of Eternity among all these illustrious souls I take my seat'; and at Louvain he could only lament the death of Justus Lipsius, whom he regarded as 'the light and the loadstar of wisdom.'
Gassendi has left us an account of the library collected by Peiresc. Besides his acquisitions in the East, of which we have spoken elsewhere, the books came in crowds from his agents in France and Germany, and his scribes in the Vatican and Escorial. 'When any library was to be sold by public outcry, he took care to buy the best books, especially if they were of some neat edition that he did not already possess.' He bound them in red morocco with his cypher or initials in gold. One binder always lived in the house, and sometimes several were employed at once, 'when the books came rolling in on every side.' He would even bind up bits of old volumes and worm-eaten leaves; good books, he said, were so badly used by the vulgar, that he would try to have them prized at least for their beauty, and so perhaps they might escape the hands of the tobacconist and the grocer. A treatise published by Jerome Alexander contained a wonderful description of the establishment. 'Your house and library,' says the dedication, 'are a firmament wherein the stars of learning shine: the desks are lit with star-light and the books are in constellations: and you sit like the sun in the midst, embracing and giving light to them all.' Peiresc was anxious to circulate the book, which contained a rare treatise by Hesychius; but he took care to compose another dedication, which was printed and inserted without comment.
Notwithstanding his profuse purchases he did not leave a large collection at his death. His friends complained that he lent 'a world of books' that were never returned, and that he was especially lavish of any works that could be replaced by purchase. 'About ten years after his death,' says his friend Lemontey, 'his relations brought his books to Paris, where I saw them in 1647; they formed a great company of volumes, most curiously bound. They ought to have been sold en bloc, but as the Genius of the library had fled, the Fates ordained that they should be torn asunder.' Most of the books were purchased for the Collège de Navarre. A great number of the mss. were destroyed, though there are still a few volumes in the public library at Carpentras. These were purchased from Louis Thomassin, a member of Peiresc's family, by Don Malachi d'Inguimbert, librarian to Pope Clement xii., who founded the collection of Carpentras when he became Bishop of the diocese. There is a tradition that Peiresc's correspondence, containing many thousands of documents, was destroyed by his grand-niece, 'a kind of female Omar,' who insisted in using the papers for lighting fires and making trays for her silk-worms.
Peiresc employed some of the most learned men of his time to collect for him in Italy. Jacques Gaffarel, who had been engaged in similar work for Richelieu, was his principal agent in Rome. At Padua he was so fortunate as to secure the services of the archæologist Tomasini. But his correspondence shows that the prince of librarians, Gabriel Naudé, was at once his agent, his adviser, and his friend; and it is from Naudé that we take the words of grief which remain as the scholar's memorial. 'Oh cruel Fate and bitter Death, thrust into the midst of our jollity! Was there ever a man, I pray you, more skilled in history and philology, more ready to assist the student, more endowed with wit and wealth and worth, the equipment of any man who, like Peiresc, is to hold the world of letters at his beck and call.'
CHAPTER XV.
FRENCH COLLECTORS—NAUDÉ TO RENOUARD.
Gabriel Naudé was a Doctor of Medicine, and held an appointment at one time as physician in ordinary to Louis xiii. But even as a student he manifested that passion for books which furnished the real occupation of his life. Before taking his degree at Padua he was librarian to Henri de Mesmes, and afterwards to Cardinal Bagni at Rome. On his patron's death he was placed in charge of the great library which Cardinal Barberini was establishing in his palace in the Piazza of the Quattro Fontane. Some part of his time was spent in collecting books for Cardinal Richelieu, who offered Naudé the charge of his library in 1642; but, the Cardinal having died in that year, Naudé transferred his services to Mazarin. He inspired his employer with the desire of emulating the magnificence of Barberini and the patriotic generosity of Borromeo; and the librarian's keen scent for books and minute knowledge of their values were thenceforth utilised in the work of creating the Bibliothèque Mazarine.