[98] M. Crapelet doubts the truth of this story. He need not.
[99] [See the account of M. Barbier, post.]
[100] It is on a small piece of paper, addressed to M. Barbier: "Cherchez dans les depôts bien soigneusement, tous les ouvrages d'ANDRE CIRINE: entr'autres ses De Venatione libri ii: Messanæ 1650. 8vo. De natura et solertia Canum; Panormi, 1653. 4to. De Venatione et Natura Animalium Libri V. ibid, 1653. 3 vol. in 4to.--tous avec figures gravées en bois. Peut être dans la Bibl. des Théatres y étoient-ils. Je me recommande toujours à M, Barbier pour la Scala Coeli, in folio, pour les Lettres de Rangouge, et pour les autres livres qu'il a bien voulu se charger de rechercher pour moy." ST. LEGER.
[101] The Abbé Hooke preceded the abbé Le Blond; the late head librarian. The present head librarian M. PETIT RADEL, has given a good account of the Mazarine Library in his Recherches sur les Bibliotheques, &c. 1819, 8vo.; but he has been reproached with a sort of studied omission of the name of Liblond-- who, according to a safe and skilful writer, may be well considered the SECOND FOUNDER of the Mazarine Library. The Abbé Liblond died at St. Cloud in 1796. In M. Renouard's Catalogue of his own books, vol. ii. p. 253, an amusing story is told about Hooke's successor, the Abbé Le Blond, and Renouard himself.
[102] Bibl. Spenceriana, vol. i. p. 3, &c. and page 154 ante.
[103] When Lord Spencer was at Paris in 1819, he told MM. Petit Radel and Thiebaut, who attended him, that it was "the finest copy he had ever seen." Whereupon, one of these gentlemen wrote with a pencil, in the fly-leaf, "Lord Spencer dit que c'est le plus bel exemplaire qu'il ait vu." And well might his Lordship say so.
[104] Bibliomania, p. 50. Bibliographical Decameron, vol. ii. p. 493.
[105] Mons. Petit-Radel has lately (1819) published an interesting octavo volume, entitled "Recherches sur les Bibliothéques anciennes et modernes, &c. with a "Notice Historique sur la Bibliothéque Mazarine: to which latter is prefixed a plate, containing portraits in outline, of Mazarin, Colbert, Naudé and Le Blond." At the end, is a list of the number of volumes in the several public libraries at Paris: from which the following is selected.
| ROYAL LIBRARY | Printed Volumes about | 350,000 |
| Ditto, as brochures, &c. | 350,000 | |
| Manuscripts | 50,000 | |
| LIBRARY OF THE ARSENAL | Printed Volumes | 150,000 |
| Manuscripts | 5,000 | |
| LIBRARY OF ST. GENEVIEVE | Printed Volumes | 110,000 |
| Manuscripts | 2,000 | |
| MAZARINE LIBRARY | Printed Volumes | 90,000 |
| Manuscripts | 3,500 | |
| LIBRARY OF THE PREFECTURE (Hotel de la Ville) | Printed Volumes | 15,000 |
| ---- ---- ---- INSTITUTE | Printed Volumes | 50,000 |
This last calculation I should think very incorrect. M. Petit Radel concludes his statement by making the WHOLE NUMBER OF ACCESSIBLE VOLUMES IN Paris amount to One Million, one hundred and twenty-five thousand, four hundred and thirty-seven. In the several DEPARTMENTS OF FRANCE, collectively, there is more than that number. But see the note ensuing.