If Saint Louis, when painfully increasing his library in the Sainte Chapelle, volume by volume, and at slow intervals, had been vouchsafed in one of his nightly visions the knowledge of the art and mystery of printing, and, while his whole being was filled with joy and admiration, suddenly awoke, and found all the steps of the process completely vanished from his memory, what anguish would have seized on him for a time, and with what disgust he would continue to witness the snail-like progress of a book, word by word, and line by line, till the writer reached the colophon. However, the possibility of what we now look on as a commonplace privilege and convenience never disturbed the equanimity of the earnest laborers of the fourteenth century, and they performed their daily tasks with patient content, and frequently with enjoyment.
Lay Libraries and Popular Fictions.
The Bibliotheque Royal dates its origin from a collection in the Sainte Chapelle of Saint Louis's palace, made by the good king for his own special reading, as well as for that of his friends of good taste. Something was done by his successors, but the real history of the royal library begins with Charles V., surnamed the "Wise."
Old house-keeping accounts preserved till the great fire on 27th October, 1737, and then partially destroyed, have put it into the power of archaeologists to point out that particular tower of the Louvre called the Library Tower. There were two floors wainscotted with boìs d'Irlande—shillela oak, as we may suppose—vaulted with cypress wood, and all ornamented with bas-reliefs. The painted windows were furnished with brass wire and iron bars. There were lutrines, (choristers' desks,)' pupitres tournants, (desks revolving on pivots,) and some of these were brought from the palace. Thirty small chandeliers and a silver lamp were lighted when evening came, and thus the students were enabled to study at night.
From some of the household accounts of Charles V. still in preservation, we learn that this Irish oak, to the amount of four hundred and eighty pieces, was presented in 1364 to the Wise King, to be used in the building of his castle, the donor being the seneschal of Hainault. The chief part of the volumes in the library of the Louvre were in the French tongue.
Besides the pieces of native literature already mentioned, we may here quote the following as the established favorites:
Romances About Charlemagne And His Peers:
Berte, Roland et Olivier, Roncevaux, Merlin, Gaidon, le Voyage à Jerusalem, Ferabras, Garin de Monglane, Dame Aye, Amis et Amile, Jordain de Blaives, Ogier le Danois, (Holger the Dane,) Beuve d'Aigremont, les Quartre Fils d'Aymon, Maugis, Aubri le Bourgoing, Gui de Nanteuil, Beuve de Hanstone, Basin, Carlon, Anseis de Carthage, Guillaume au Court Nez.
Tales Of The Round Table:
La Mort d'Artus, le Saint Graal, Gauvain, l'Atre Perilleux, (Castle Perilous,) Glorion de Bretagne, Giron le Courtois (Sir Gawain, qu.) Meliadus, and those already mentioned.
Poems And Romances:
Cleomedes, Blancandin, Gerart de Nevers, le Comte de Poitiers, Flore et Blanche-fleur, Gautier d'Aupais, Gui de Warwick, Meraugia, la Manckine, Robert le Diable.
Poems On Classic Subjects:
Troie, Enéas, Narcissus, la Prise de Thèbes, (the Taking of Thebes,) le Siège d'Athènes, Ypomedon, Thesalus, Alexandre, Jules César, Vespasien.