The Cabinet des Livres at Chantilly, still just as it was when occupied by the Duc d’Aumale, with his chair, his writing-table, his reading-lamp and half-burnt candle, contains no less than fourteen thousand manuscripts of the very highest importance. The most noteworthy amongst these are: the first ten books of St. Augustine’s Cité de Dieu (translated by Raoul de Presles); Aristotle’s Ethics (translated by Nicolas Oresmes); Livy’s Second Decade (translated by Pierre Bersuire); all of which at one time belonged to the Duc de Berry. Then there is the third volume of the Gallic War, a free translation of the Commentaries of Cæsar,[31] on the last page of which is the following inscription: Albertus Pichius, auxilio Godofredi pictoris Batavi faciebat praecipiete Francisco Molinio mense novembris anno quinquimillesimo vigesimo; whence we derive information regarding the date of its completion, the names of the artists who were entrusted with it and even the name of the man who commissioned it on behalf of Francis I.
Most interesting are a selection of the Table Ronde used by Gaston Paris in Vol. XXX of the Histoire littéraire de la France and a copy of Dante’s Inferno with a Commentary by Guido of Pisa. Furthermore a French translation of Cicero’s Rhetorics written in 1282 by Master Jean d’Antioch and commissioned by a monk called Guillaume de Saint-Etienne of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem: a MS. which throws interesting light on still more ancient translations and is ornamented with fine old miniatures; a French translation of Valere Maxime (in two volumes), which belonged to the Cardinal George d’Amboise; a translation of Diodorus Siculus, with a frontispiece representing King Francis and his Court; and an illuminated manuscript, known to have been the Book of Hours of Anne de Montmorency, offer more than ordinary interest. This last belongs to the sixteenth century and contains miniatures in the style of Jean Cousin.
Next comes a Legenda Aurea, which once belonged to Charles V of France and which in its time has travelled back and forth between England and France (as was so often the case with old books and manuscripts); for on the last page we read in an unknown hand:
And yf my pen were better
Better shuld be my letter.
Plate XXIX.
