This admirable library, which also contains collections of medals, and other curiosities, is open to all persons who choose to attend as students, without any expense, recommendation, or favour, every day in the week; but, to prevent the labours of these being interrupted, the visits of such as only come from motives of curiosity are limited to two days in seven. I saw, with pleasure, that the object of this splendid institution is fully answered. Forty or fifty young men, deeply intent on the subject of their inquiries, were seated in different parts of the room, and seemed to pursue, with enthusiasm, those studies, which the liberality of their country thus afforded them the means of cultivating.
The gallery of manuscripts (called the gallery of Mazarine) contains thirty thousand volumes, generally on the history of France, and more particularly relating to facts which have taken place since the reign of Lewis XI, twenty-five thousand of which are in learned or foreign languages. The librarian, to whose care these precious papers are entrusted, was known to a gentleman who accompanied me, and through his goodness we saw several, which are not commonly exhibited.
I was much surprised at finding, in the hand writing of Lewis XIV. memoirs of his own times, so accurately taken, that, with very little difficulty, they might be prepared for the press. I understand that a gentleman, belonging to the library, began this useful task, and had made considerable progress, when a sudden illness deprived his country and the literary world of his services.
I was not a little entertained with the love letters of Henry IV., which are in perfect preservation, and some of which have, I believe, been published. The following is a fac simile of one, which particularly attracted my notice:
“Mon cher cœur, nous venons de dyner
ceans, et sommes fort sous. Je
vous veyrré devant que partyre de Parys
vous cherryre non comme yl
faut, mes comme je pourre
Ce porteur me haste sy fort que