of the Jesuits at Rheims,
now the _Lingerie de l'Hopital General_.]

Lastly, I must mention the libraries of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette at
Versailles. The walls are lined with a double row of presses, each closed
by glass doors. The lower row is about four feet high, the upper row about
ten feet high. The wood-work is painted white, and enriched with wreaths
of leaves in ormolu. As a general rule the books are hidden from view by
curtains of pleated silk.

I mentioned in a previous chapter[515] that additional space was provided
for the library in a French monastery by raising the roof of an existing
building, putting in dormer windows, and converting the triangular space
so gained into a library by placing in it bookcases of a convenient
height, and connecting them together by a ceiling. I have fortunately
discovered one such library still in existence at Rheims. It belonged
originally to the Jesuits, who had constructed it about 1678, and when the
Order was expelled from France in 1764, and their House became the
workhouse (_hopital general_) of the town, it was fortunately made use of
as the _lingerie_, or linen-room, without any material change. Even the
table has been preserved. The view here presented of the interior (fig.
132) may serve to give a general idea, not merely of this library, but of
others of the same class. The decoration of the ceiling is coarse but
effective. On the coved portion of it, within the shields, are written the
subjects of the books on the shelves beneath. I made a list of these and
have printed them on the margin of my ground-plan (fig. 133). This plan
also shews the arrangement of the bookcases. They are placed at a distance
of five feet from the walls, and are returned to meet each window, thus
forming convenient bays for private study. The space between the bookcases
and the wall was used as a store-room[516].

[Illustration: Fig. 133. Ground-plan of the Library of the Jesuits at
Rheims.

The Bibliotheque Sainte-Genevieve, at Paris, offered originally a splendid
example of a library arranged in this manner. It consisted of two
galleries, at right angles to each other, fitted up in the same style as
the library at Rheims. The longest of these galleries was 147 ft. long by
24 ft. wide. The guidebooks prepared for the use of visitors to Paris in
the middle of the 18th century dwell with enthusiasm on the convenience
and beauty of this room. The books were protected by wire-work;