The seventh volume bears the title of Mariolia: all the treatises have for their theme the perfections and the worship of the Virgin. Many extraordinary things are here. One is a dictionary of names given to the Virgin, with observations on these names. Another on the devotion of the scapulary, and its wonderful effects, written against De Launoi, and for which the order of the Carmes, when he died, bestowed a solemn service and obsequies on him. Another of these "Mariolia" is mentioned by Gallois in the Journal des Sçavans, 1667, as a proof of his fertility; having to preach on the seven solemn anthems which the Church sings before Christmas, and which begin by an O! he made this letter only the subject of his sermons, and barren as the letter appears, he has struck out "a multitude of beautiful particulars." This literary folly invites our curiosity.
In the eighth volume is a table of saints, classed by their station, condition, employment, and trades: a list of titles and prerogatives, which the councils and the fathers have attributed to the sovereign pontiff.
The thirteenth volume has a subject which seems much in the taste of the sermons on the letter O! it is entitled Laus Brevitatis! in praise of brevity. The maxims are brief, but the commentary long. One of the natural subjects treated on is that of Noses: he reviews a great number of noses, and, as usual, does not forget the Holy Virgin's. According to Raynaud, the nose of the Virgin Mary was long and aquiline, the mark of goodness and dignity; and as Jesus perfectly resembled his mother, he infers that he must have had such a nose.
A treatise entitled Heteroclita spiritualia et anomala Pietatis Cælestium, Terrestrium, et Infernorum, contains many singular practices introduced into devotion, which superstition, ignorance, and remissness, have made a part of religion.
A treatise directed against the new custom of hiring chairs in churches, and being seated during the sacrifice of the mass. Another on the Cæsarean operation, which he stigmatises as an act against nature. Another on eunuchs. Another entitled Hipparchus de Religioso Negotiatore, is an attack on those of his own company; the monk turned merchant; the Jesuits were then accused of commercial traffic with the revenues of their establishment. The rector of a college at Avignon, who thought he was portrayed in this honest work, confined Raynaud in prison for five months.
The most curious work of Raynaud connected with literature, I possess; it is entitled Erotemata de malis ac bonis Libris, deque justa aut injusta eorundem confixione. Lugduni, 1653, 4to, with necessary indexes. One of his works having been condemned at Rome, he drew up these inquiries concerning good and bad books, addressed to the grand inquisitor. He divides his treatise into "bad and nocent books; bad books but not nocent; books not bad, but nocent; books neither bad nor nocent." His immense reading appears here to advantage, and his Ritsonian feature is prominent; for he asserts, that when writing against heretics all mordacity is innoxious; and an alphabetical list of abusive names, which the fathers have given to the heterodox is entitled Alphabetum bestialitatis Hæretici, ex Patrum Symbolis.
After all, Raynaud was a man of vast acquirement, with a great flow of ideas, but tasteless, and void of all judgment. An anecdote may be recorded of him, which puts in a clear light the state of these literary men. Raynaud was one day pressing hard a reluctant bookseller to publish one of his works, who replied—"Write a book like Father Barri's, and I shall be glad to print it." It happened that the work of Barri was pillaged from Raynaud, and was much liked, while the original lay on the shelf. However, this only served to provoke a fresh attack from our redoubtable hero, who vindicated his rights, and emptied his quiver on him who had been ploughing with his heifer.
Such are the writers who, enjoying all the pleasures without the pains of composition, have often apologised for their repeated productions, by declaring that they write only for their own amusement; but such private theatricals should not be brought on the public stage. One Catherinot all his life was printing a countless number of feuilles volantes in history and on antiquities, each consisting of about three or four leaves in quarto: Lenglet du Fresnoy calls him "grand auteur des petits livres." This gentleman liked to live among antiquaries and historians; but with a crooked headpiece, stuck with whims, and hard with knotty combinations, all overloaded with prodigious erudition, he could not ease it at a less rate than by an occasional dissertation of three or four quarto pages. He appears to have published about two hundred pieces of this sort, much sought after by the curious for their rarity: Brunet complains he could never discover a complete collection. But Catherinot may escape "the pains and penalties" of our voluminous writers, for De Bure thinks he generously printed them to distribute among his friends. Such endless writers, provided they do not print themselves into an alms-house, may be allowed to print themselves out; and we would accept the apology which Monsieur Catherinot has framed for himself, which I find preserved in Beyeri Memoriæ Librorum Rariorum. "I must be allowed my freedom in my studies, for I substitute my writings for a game at the tennis-court, or a club at the tavern; I never counted among my honours these opuscula of mine, but merely as harmless amusements. It is my partridge, as with St. John the Evangelist; my cat, as with Pope St. Gregory; my little dog, as with St. Dominick; my lamb, as with St. Francis; my great black mastiff, as with Cornelius Agrippa; and my tame hare, as with Justus Lipsius." I have since discovered in Niceron that this Catherinot could never get a printer, and was rather compelled to study economy in his two hundred quartos of four or eight pages: his paper was of inferior quality; and when he could not get his dissertations into his prescribed number of pages, he used to promise the end at another time, which did not always happen. But his greatest anxiety was to publish and spread his works; in despair he adopted an odd expedient. Whenever Monsieur Catherinot came to Paris, he used to haunt the quaies where books are sold, and while he appeared to be looking over them, he adroitly slided one of his own dissertations among these old books. He began this mode of publication early, and continued it to his last days. He died with a perfect conviction that he had secured his immortality; and in this manner had disposed of more than one edition of his unsaleable works. Niceron has given the titles of 118 of his things, which he had looked over.