The practice of placing the book-press in the cloister obtained with equal force in France, for the Benedictines who wrote the Voyage Littéraire, and who would of course be well acquainted with what was usual in their own Order, remark with surprise when they visit the ancient abbey of Cruas on the Rhone, that the press is in the church.
On voit encore dans l'eglise l'armoire où on enfermoit les livres, contre la coûtume des autres monastères de l'ordre, qui avoient cette armoire dans le cloître. On y lit ces vers d'un caractère qui peut avoir cinq cent ans:
Pastor jejunat qui libros non coadunat
Nec panem præbet subjectis quem dare debet[195].
A shepherd starves whose store of books is low:
Nor can he on his flock their due bestow.
No example of an English book-press has survived, so far as I know, but it would be rash to say that none exists; nor have I been so fortunate as to find one in France, though I have taken a great deal of pains to obtain information on the subject. In default of a press made specially to hold books, I must content myself with representations of two well-known pieces of furniture—both preserved in French churches.
The first ([fig. 26]) stands in the upper sacristy of the Cathedral of Bayeux, over the south transept. The name usually given to it, le Chartrier de Bayeux, implies that it was made to hold documents. M. Viollet-le-Duc does not accept this view, but considers that it contained reliquaries, with which he probably would not object to associate other articles of church-plate.
Fig. 26. Part of the ancient press in Bayeux Cathedral, called Le Chartrier de Bayeux. From a photograph.