of St. Vincent at Besancon; and during the
Revolution the whole collection became the property of the citizens and
was transferred to the public library.

The hereditary treasures of the Bouhier family were dispersed in the same
way through several provincial libraries. The collection had begun in the
reign of Louis XII., and something had been done in each generation
afterwards by way of adding fine books and manuscripts. Etienne Bouhier
had collected in all parts of Italy. Jean Bouhier in 1642 bought the
accumulations of Pontus de Thyard, the learned Bishop of Chalons. His
father's own library had been dispersed among his children; but Jean
Bouhier succeeded in getting it together again, and added a large number
of MSS. which he had gathered for the illustration of the history of
Burgundy. The library became still more famous in the time of his
grandson the President Jean Bouhier, who has been admired as the type of
the true bibliophile. The bibliomaniac heaps up books from avarice or
some animal instinct; he is a collector, it is said, 'without intelligent
curiosity.' Bouhier used to read his books and make notes upon them; and
it is said that he carried the practice to such excess as to deface with
marginal scribblings the finest work of Henri Estienne and Antoine
Verard. A visitor to his library described the sober magnificence of the
rosewood shelves with silken hangings in which the rare editions and
long rows of manuscripts were ranged. In the next generation there was a
startling change. The library had been left to Bouhier's son-in-law,
Chartraire de Bourbonne: the grave offspring of Aldus and Gryphius found
themselves in company with poets of the _talon rouge_ and muses of the
_Opera bouffe_. When the gay De Bourbonne died, the ill-assorted crowd
passed to his son-in-law in his turn, and was transferred in 1784 to the
Abbey of Clairvaux.

We cannot name or classify the bibliophiles of the eighteenth century. It
would be endless to describe them with the briefest of personal notes;
how M. Barre loved out-of-the-way books and fugitive pieces, or Lambert
de Thorigny a good history, or how Gabriel de Sartines, the policeman of
the Parc aux Cerfs, had a marvellous collection about Paris. When Count
Macarthy sold his books at Toulouse his catalogue contained a list of
about ninety others, issued in the same century, from which his riches
were derived. We can point to a few of the mightiest Nimrods. We see the
ser