Catherine de Medicis herself had the taste of Diana for beautiful bindings, and kept a staff of workmen, who vied with each other in the production of beautiful specimens of ornamentation. She had the mania of the true book collector, for on the death of the Maréchal de Strozzi, she laid violent hands on his choice and valuable library, promising to pay for it sometime, but ultimately dying herself without doing so.
The books of Francis I. (1515-47), if bound for his use while Dauphin of France, are marked with a dolphin, in addition to the ordinary kingly stamps of the Royal Arms, a salamander, and the letter F. The motto in each case is the same: "Nutrio et extinguo". Specimens of binding having the dolphin are extraordinarily rare.
Henri III. (1574-89) did much to reduce the extravagant cost of bookbinding, for, in 1583, he made a decree that ordinary citizens should not decorate any single book with more than four diamonds, or the nobility with more than five; he himself and a few other scapegraces of the Royal House were under no restriction. The same King instituted the order of the "Penitents" as some little compensation for a life of shameless vice and crime, and celebrated the occurrence by the invention of a new binding, the originality of which is undoubted. On black morocco, and sometimes with the Arms of France, appear a death's head, cross-bones, tears, and other emblems of woe, including a joke in the form of a motto, "Spes mea Deus". Henri, when Duke of Anjou, loved Mary of Clèves, and subsequently consoled himself for her untimely death by binding a quantity of books in his library. Skulls, tears, and fleurs-de-lys are thrown about in profusion; the motto, "Memento mori," looks out at you from among floreated ornaments; Jesus and Marie are placed on a level. When ordered to attend the Court after the death of his beloved Mary, he made his appearance in a black robe, embroidered all over with the usual funereal emblems.
The gloomy bindings of Henri III. brought on a reaction, giving rise to a style of decoration known as à la fanfare. No sooner was the King gathered to his fathers than his sister, Margaret of Valois, exchanged the death's heads for a fanciful decoration, consisting of a profusion of foliage, sprinkled with daisies. Bindings of this period are very choice, but not so elaborate as the development of the fanfare eventually made them. The foliage became much more delicate, and the clusters of leaves and flowers at last resembled lace work, under the magic touch of the great binder Le Gascon.
We now leave Royal personages, and descend to a lower level, meeting at the very threshold the historian Thuanus, better known as De Thou (1553-1617). This celebrated amateur and patron of bookbinding was an intimate friend of Grolier, and president of the Paris Parliament in the reign of Henri IV. All his books, of which he possessed a large number, were bound in morocco or gilded calf skin in a style which varied with the different periods of his life. His bachelor's library was embellished with his arms in silver, between two branches of laurel, with his name below. After his marriage in 1587, his wife's escutcheon is stamped alongside his own with the initials J. A. M. below, and also on the backs of his volumes. During his life as a widower, a wreath of twining-stems tipped with red berries, and his own and dead wife's initials interlaced, take the place of other ornaments. After his second marriage in 1603, his new wife's escutcheon appears in conjunction with his own, but the initials are changed to J. A. G.
This splendid library remained intact for more than 200 years, and it was not until 1677 that it was sold almost as it stood to the Marquis de Ménars. At his death in 1718, it was purchased by Cardinal de Rohan, but in 1789, his heirs, impoverished by legal proceedings, were compelled to disperse the collection. The binders principally employed by De Thou were the Eves (Nicholas, Clovis, and Robert), whose splendid workmanship is a model for such of our modern binders as follow the higher branches of the art.
Le Gascon, the binder to the Duke of Orleans, who seems to have flourished between the years 1620 and 1640, was another workman of the first rank. The Duke was a great collector, whose shelves were covered with green velvet, garnished with gold lace and fringe, and whose bindings by Le Gascon were similarly ornamented.
Among the large number of French bibliophiles who now appeared on the scene, and competed with each other in the beauty of their bindings, one or two must necessarily be mentioned, since the modern collector envies or admires their taste.
Chancellor Séguier, at the end of the seventeenth century, employed Ruette to make the bindings au mouton d'or, which graced his shelves; and a little later still, the Baron de Longepierre utilised the well-known ornament of the Golden Fleece, which, when found on any book, no matter how intrinsically worthless, greatly enhances its price. These are the prizes of book collecting, seldom met with, and always strongly competed for.
The Colberts stamped the sides of their books with their crest, in which the climbing adder is always conspicuous. There were no less than seven members of this family who loved books, and all embellished them with the adder in a shield surmounted by a crown.