e choicest miniatures, and
known as the best specimen of its class in the possession of Prince
Soltikoff. It is only a few years ago that it entered the collection of
M. Firmin-Didot, who paid 36,000 francs for it at the Prince's sale: in
the year 1861 he gave it up to the City of Paris; but like so many of the
great books of France it perished in the fires of the Commune.

Jacques de Pars, the physician to Charles VII., bequeathed his scientific
MSS. to the College of Medicine at Paris: and the value of his gift was
manifested when the powerful Louis XI. was forbidden to take out a
medical treatise for transcription unless he would pledge his silver
plate and find collateral security for its safe return. Etienne Chevalier
was one of the few servants of King Charles who were tolerated by King
Louis. He became Chief Treasurer to Louis XI., and built a great mansion
in the Rue de la Verrerie in Paris. The walls and ceilings were decorated
with allegorical designs in honour of his friend Agnes Sorel, whose
courage had led to the expulsion of the English invaders. The library was
filled with choice MSS., illuminated for the most part by Jehan Foucquet,
the famous miniaturist from Tours. Nicholas Chevalier, his descendant in
the sixteenth century, was also illustrious as a bibliophile, and amidst
his own printed folios and pedigrees rolled in blue velvet could still
show the marvellous _Livre d'Heures_, of which all that now remains is a
set of paintings hacked out from the text. M. Le Roux de Lincy has
compiled a long and interesting list of the French bibliophiles who
preceded the age of Grolier. We can only mention a few out of the number.
Of the poets we have Charles, Duke of Orleans, the owner of eighty
magnificent volumes preserved in the Castle of Blois, and Pierre Ronsard;
and we may add the Abbe Philippe Desportes, renowned not less for a
rivalry with Ronsard than for his sumptuous mode of living and the
fortune expended on his library. To the statesmen may be added Florimond
Robertet, the first of a long line of bibliophiles. Among the learned
ladies of the sixteenth century we may choose Louise Labe, surnamed 'La
Belle Cordiere,' who made a collection of a new kind, composed entirely
of works in French, Spanish, and Italian, and Charlotte Guillard, a
printer as well as a book-collector, who published at her own expense a
volume of the Commentaries of St. Jerome.

The most important of the private collectors in thi