LETTER XXX.
General account of literary establishments at Paris.—National library.—Manuscripts.—Memoirs of his own times, by Lewis XIV.—Fac simile of a love letter of Henry IV.—Cabinet of medals.—Cabinet of engravings, &c.—Library of the Pantheon.—Mazarine library.—Library of the Institute.—Libraries of the senate, the legislative body, and tribunate.—The Lycées, now called les Athénées.—Admirable lectures given at one of them.—Professors Fourcroy, Cuvier, and la Harpe.—“L’Institute national.”—“Jardin national des Plantes”—Collection of birds, plants, fossils, and insects, in the house attached to the “Jardin des Plantes.”—“Cabinet de l’École des Mines, à l’Hôtel des Monnoies.”—Great opportunities afforded at Paris of cultivating science and literature in all their various branches.
Paris, may the 10th, 1802 (20 floréal.)
MY DEAR SIR,
I have postponed speaking to you of the literary establishments of Paris, till my residence here had been sufficiently long to enable me to give my opinion with some degree of certainty.
Perhaps there is no town in the known world, which affords such favourable opportunities of acquiring and cultivating knowledge, as that from which I am now writing. On this subject, equality in the best sense exists; and while the poor man has the finest libraries, and most extensive collections opened to his use, without any expense whatever, he, whose circumstances are moderately easy, obtains, for a trifling consideration, every possible means of additional improvement.
The national library, which existed during the monarchy, and was founded by Charles the fifth, occupies a large building in the rue de la Loi (ci-devant de Richelieu). An elegant staircase, painted by Pelegrini, leads to the spacious apartments on the first floor, which take up three sides of the large court by which you enter, and which contain no less than three hundred thousand printed volumes. Five or six rooms, well lighted and well aired, offer on each side the best books, in every science and in every language. Tables are placed for the convenience of students, and attentive librarians civilly deliver the works which are asked for.
In the second room is a curious piece of workmanship, called “le Parnasse françois[82]” by Titon Dutillet, in which the different poets and writers of France are represented as climbing up the steep ascent of that difficult but inspired mountain. In my opinion, it deserves attention more as a specimen of national taste, and private industry, than as a production either of genius or of beauty.
In the third “salon” are the celebrated globes, the one celestial, the other terrestrial, made in 1683, by the jesuit Coronelli, for the cardinal d’Estrées. They are of immense dimensions, but require new painting; as, in the first place, they were made before the last discoveries, and secondly, the colours are almost entirely effaced by the lapse of time.