We fortunately possess a minute description of Clairvaux, written, soon after the completion of the new library, by the secretary to the Queen of Sicily, who came there 13 July, 1517, and was taken, apparently, through every part of the monastery[238]. The account of the library is as follows:
Et de ce même costé [dudit cloistre] sont xiiii estudes où les religieulx escripvent et estudient, lesquelles sont très belles, et au dessus d'icelles estudes est la neufve librairerie, à laquelle l'on va par une vis large et haulte estant audict cloistre, laquelle librairie contient de longeur lxiii passées, et de largeur xvii passées.
En icelle y a quarante huic banctz, et en chacun banc quatre poulpitres fournys de livres de touttes sciences, et principallement en théologie, dont la pluspart desdicts livres sont en parchemin et escript à la main, richement historiez et enluminez.
L'édiffice de ladicte librairie est magnificque et massonnée, et bien esclairé de deux costez de belles grandes fenestres, bien vitrés, ayant regard sur ledict cloistre et cimitière des Abbez. La couverture est de plomb et semblablement de ladite église et cloistre, et tous les pilliers bouttans d'iceulx édiffices couverts de plomb.
Le devant d'icelle librairie est moult richement orné et entaillé par le bas de collunnes d'estranges façons, et par le hault de riches feuillaiges, pinacles et tabernacles, garnis de grandes ymaiges, qui décorent et embelissent ledict édifice. La vis, par laquelle on y monte, est à six pans, larges pour y monter trois hommes de front, et couronné à l'entour de cleres voyes de massonerie. Ladicte librairerie est toute pavée de petits carreaulx à diverses figures.
It will be interesting to place by the side of this description a second, written nearly two hundred years later, by the authors of the Voyage Littéraire, who visited Clairvaux in the spring of 1709:
Le grand cloître ... est voûté et vitré. Les religieux y doivent garder un perpétuel silence. Dans le côté du chapitre il y a des livres enchaînez sur des pupitres de bois, dans lesquels les religieux peuvent venir faire des lectures lorsqu'ils veulent....
Du grand cloître on entre dans le cloître du colloque, ainsi appellé, parce qu'il est permis aux religieux d'y parler. Il y a dans ce cloître douze ou quinze petites cellules tout d'un rang, où les religieux écrivoient autrefois des livres: c'est pourquoy on les appelle encore aujourd'hui les écritoires. Au-dessus de ces cellules est la bibliothèque, dont le vaisseau est grand, voûté, bien percé, et rempli d'un grand nombre de manuscrits, attachez avec des chaînes sur des pupitres, mais il y a peu de livres imprimez[239].
The plan of the substruction of this new library, as shewn on the ground-plan of Clairvaux given by Viollet Le Duc[240], is exactly the same as that of Citeaux ([fig. 33]) but on a larger scale. The library itself, as there, was approached by a newel stair at its south-west corner. This stair was hexagonal, and of a diameter sufficient to allow three men to ascend at the same time. The library was of great extent—being about 206 feet long by 56 feet broad—if the dimensions given in the above account be correct, and if I am right in supposing a pace (passée) to be equivalent to a modern mètre; vaulted, and well lighted. The Queen's secretary seems to have been specially struck by the beauty, the size, and the decoration of the windows. The floor was paved with encaustic tiles.
It will be interesting to note how, in some Houses, the library slowly expanded itself, occupying, one after another, every coign of vantage-ground. An excellent example of this growth is to be found in the abbey of Saint Germain des Près, Paris; and fortunately there are several views, taken at different periods before the Revolution, on which the gradual extension of the library can be readily traced. I append a portion of two of these. The first ([fig. 36]), dated 1687, shews the library over the south walk of the cloister, where it was placed in 1555. It must not, however, be supposed that no library existed before this. On the contrary, the House seems to have had one from the first foundation, and so early as the thirteenth century it could be consulted by strangers, and books borrowed from it. The second view ([fig. 37]), dated 1724, shews a still further extension of the library. It has now invaded the west side of the cloister, which has received an upper storey; and even the external appearance of the venerable Frater, which was respected when nearly all the rest of the buildings were rebuilt in a classical style, has been sacrificed to a similar gallery. The united lengths of these three rooms must have been little short of 384 feet. This library was at the disposal of all scholars who desired to use it. When the Revolution came it contained more than 49,000 printed books, and 7000 manuscripts[241].