. When I dined in this neighbourhood, with my friend M. Gail, the
Greek Professor at the College Royale, I took an opportunity of leisurely
examining this once renowned quarter. I felt even proud and happy to walk
the streets, or rather tread the earth, which had been once trodden by
_Gering_, _Crantz_, and _Fiburger_.[122] Their spirits seemed yet to haunt
the spot:--but no volume, nor even traces of one--executed at their press--
could be discovered. To have found a perfect copy of _Terence_, printed in
their first Roman character, would have been a _trouvaille_ sufficiently
lucky to have compensated for all previous toil, and to have franked me as
far as Strasbourg.

The principal mart for booksellers, of old and second hand books, is now
nearer the Seine; and especially in the _Quai des Augustins_. _Messrs.
Treuttel and Wuertz, Panckoucke, Renouard_, and _Brunet_, live within a
quarter of a mile of each other: about a couple of hundred yards from the
_Quai des Augustins_. Further to the south, and not far from the Hotel de
Clugny, in the _Rue Serpente_, live the celebrated DEBURE. They are
booksellers to the King, and to the Royal Library; and a more respectable
house, or a more ancient firm, is probably not to be found in Europe.
Messrs. Debure are as straight-forward, obliging, and correct, in their
transactions, as they are knowing in the value, and upright in the sale, of
their stock in trade. No bookseller in Paris possesses a more judicious
stock, or can point to so many rare and curious books. A young collector
may rely with perfect safety upon them; and accumulate, for a few hundred
pounds, a very respectable stock of _Editiones principes_ or _rarissimae_. I
do not say that such young collector would find them _cheaper there_, or
_so cheap_ as in _Pall-Mall_; but I do say that he may rest assured that
Messieurs Debure would never, knowingly, sell him an imperfect book. Of the
Debure, there are two brothers: of whom the elder hath a most gallant
propensity to _portrait-collecting_--and is even rich in portraits relating
to _our_ history. Of course the chief strength lies in French history; and
I should think that Monsieur Debure l'aine shewed me almost as many
portraits of Louis XIV. as there are editions of the various works of
Cicero in the fifteenth century.[123] But my attention was more
particularly directed to a certain boudoir, up one pair of stairs, in which
Madame Debure, their venerable and excellent