French Book-plates Part 1

French Book-plates.

by Walter Hamilton.

PREFACE.

Since the first edition of this Handbook was published in 1892 the taste for collecting book-plates has spread with such rapidity that that which was formerly the hobby of a few, has now become the serious pursuit of the many.

Societies devoted to the collection and study of ex-libris have been founded by eminent genealogists and heraldists, not only in Great Britain, but also in Germany, France, and the United States, all of which are in a flouris.h.i.+ng condition, numbering many active and enthusiastic members. Each of these societies publishes an ill.u.s.trated Journal in which the book-plates of all ages and countries are being reproduced and described from almost every point of view. Whilst the ever-widening circle of literature on the topic shows that the taste has now also spread to Sweden, to Italy, to Belgium, to Switzerland, and to South America.

Such intense literary activity has led to the recent publication of many interesting records of French ex-libris, and in order to keep my readers _au courant_ with the present state of knowledge, it has been found necessary to increase the number of chapters, to add materially to the others, and to include nearly a hundred facsimiles, in addition to those in the former edition.

The writings of Poulet-Mala.s.sis, Henri Bouchot, Octave Uzanne, le Pere Ingold, Auguste Castan, A. Benoit, Henri Jadart, and H. Jardere, are all well-known to French collectors, but they have not been translated, and what is even more serious for the British collector, the original editions are now for the most part un.o.btainable.

I have therefore attempted to embody all the princ.i.p.al facts to be gleaned from these authorities with the information derived from my own collection, so as to produce a succinct history of French book-plates from 1574 (the year named on the first known dated French book-plate) to the present day. In the alphabetical list of artists and engravers will be found such a concentration of information useful to collectors as does not exist in any other work on the subject.

Heraldic details have been avoided as far as possible, yet some little s.p.a.ce has necessarily been devoted to the explanation of the princ.i.p.al differences between the systems of the two nations, in order to enable a collector of French book-plates to understand certain peculiarities either not to be found on British armorial bearings, or conveying a different meaning to that ascribed to them in British heraldry.

Of the ill.u.s.trations, many have been reproduced from rare old examples, whilst those of modern date are of interest, either on account of the fame of their artists, or their owners, or for the beauty or quaintness of their design.

As the majority are dated specimens, they have an educational value in representing the styles of heraldry and of ornamentation in vogue at the various periods during the last three centuries.

To Dr. Bouland, President of the French Society, I am greatly indebted for the loan of several interesting reproductions, and my thanks are also due to Messieurs Aglaus Bouvenne, Henry Andre, L. Joly, Leon Quantin, le Pere Ingold, and other artists and owners of book-plates for their kind permission to reproduce them here.

A final tribute of grat.i.tude remains to be paid to one who shares all my labours, or my cares, and adds that charm to life that makes success worth striving for.

Every line in this little book has pa.s.sed under her eyes, for revision or correction, and I would pray:

"Untouch'd with any shade of years, May those kind eyes forever dwell!

They have not shed a many tears, Dear eyes, since first I knew them well."

WALTER HAMILTON.

"ELLARBEE,"

Clapham Common, Surrey.

_October_, 1896.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BOOK-PLATE OF J. B. MICHAUD, 1791.]

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

It is nearly a quarter of a century since Mons. Maurice Tourneux first drew attention to the subject of French book-plates in an article which appeared in "L'Amateur d'Autographes" for April, 1872. This was descriptive of the famous collection of Mons. Aglaus Bouvenne, who is himself the designer of some of the most interesting and artistic of modern French book-plates. Next followed the well-known work of Mons. A.

Poulet-Mala.s.sis, "Les Ex-Libris Francais," the preface to which is dated January 20th, 1874; a second edition was issued in the following year by P. Rouquette, Paris, 1875. Then, after a long interval, appeared "Les Ex-Libris et les Marques de Possession du Livre," by Henri Bouchot.

Paris: Edouard Rouveyre, 1891.

Beyond these, and a few pamphlets descriptive of local collections, such as the "Pet.i.te Revue d'Ex-Libris Alsaciens," by Auguste s...o...b..r, 1881, and some articles by Octave Uzanne in "Le Livre Moderne," comparatively little had been written on the topic until the appearance of the first edition of this work.

Indeed, in his last article in "Le Livre Moderne" (No. 24, December, 1891), M. Octave Uzanne deplored the want of interest shown by the French authors in this important branch of bibliographical art. From amongst the hundreds of thousands of book-plates known to exist in public and private collections, there would, he said, be no difficulty in selecting sufficient representative examples to form a magnificent "Dictionnaire Ill.u.s.tre des Ex-Libris." The task must, however, remain unperformed until an author is found possessing not only sufficient taste, skill, and leisure to undertake it, but also ample means to carry it out, for such a work would undoubtedly be costly, and not many publishers would be willing to undertake the risk of producing it.

Hitherto no such collection has been published, either in Great Britain or in France; the nearest approach, in French, being the "Armorial du Bibliophile," by Joannis Guigard, which deals only with the stamps on armorial bookbindings, and the splendid work on German Ex-Libris by Herr Frederic Warnecke, published in Berlin in 1890.

M. A. Poulet-Mala.s.sis opens his work with the expression: "Pas un des dictionnaires de la langue francaise n'a admis le terme _ex-libris_, compose de deux mots latins qui signifient _des livres ... faisant partie des livres_. II est pourtant consacre par l'usage et se dit de toute marque de propriete appliquee a l'exterieur ou a l'interieur d'un volume."

He could, however, no longer complain of the absence of the term _ex-libris_ from the dictionaries, as, since he wrote, M. Pierre Larousse has inserted the following definition in vol. vii. of "Le Grand Dictionnaire Universel du XIX siecle" (Paris, 4to, 1866-1877):

"EX-LIBRIS, mots latins qui signifient litteralement des livres, d'entre des livres, faisant partie des livres, avec le nom du proprietaire. Ces mots s'inscrivent ordinairement en tete de chaque volume d'une bibliotheque avec la signature du proprietaire. On connait ce trait d'ignorance d'un financier, homme d'ordre avant tout, qui avait ordonne a son chapelier de coller soigneus.e.m.e.nt au fond de son chapeau 'Ex-Libris Vaudore.'"

But what is still more singular than the omission of _ex-libris_ from their dictionaries, is that no word, or phrase, in their own pure and beautiful language has been set apart by our neighbours to define these interesting marks of book possession.

On early French ex-libris the phrases of possession are most frequently found in Latin, as, indeed, is the case with the early book-plates of most nations. The earliest known example, and that is simply typographical, is of Ailleboust of Autun, dated 1574; it has the expression _Ex bibliotheca_; but it was not until about 1700 that this and similar phrases came into general use, and they were then gradually adopted in nearly the following order: _Ex bibliotheca_; _Ex libris_; _Ex catalogo bibliothecae_; _Ex musaeo_; _Insigne librorum_; _Bibliotheque de--_; _Du cabinet de--_; _Je suis a M----_; _J'appartiens a----_.

It will be noticed that Latin gradually gave way to the French language, and on more modern plates French expressions are usually employed. "Je suis a Jean Tommins" (1750) and "J'appartiens a Lucien Werner" have a distinct character of their own. "Ce livre est du Monastere de la visitation de Sainte Marie de Clermont" (1830), or "Ce livre fait partie de la Bibliotheque de M. le Comte de Fortia d'Urban, demeurant a Paris, Chaussee d'Antin, rue de la Rochefoucault," are clear and positive statements of fact. Other collectors are less explicit, simply inserting: "Bibliotheque de Pastoret," "Bibliotheque de Rosny," "De la Bibliotheque de M. le Chevalier Dampoigne," "Du Cabinet de Messire Barthelemy Gabriel Rolland."

The term _Ex-libris_ is now generally understood to refer to the labels, either printed or engraved, fixed by owners inside their books, to show by names, arms, or other devices, to whom the volumes belong. But French collectors employ the term _Ex-libris_ in a much wider sense than we do; as, for instance, in reference to the ma.n.u.script entries of owners.h.i.+p in books, as we shall see later on, when dealing with the so-called ex-libris of Francois Rabelais and of Charlotte Corday, which are in reality but the autographs of these celebrities written in books which once belonged to them.

That this is the well-understood rule is borne out in the very opening sentences of the charming little brochure, "Pet.i.te Revue d'Ex-Libris Alsaciens," by the late Mons. Auguste s...o...b..r (Mulhouse, 1881): "Lorsque, encore a.s.sis sur les bancs de l'ecole, nous tracions, d'une main peu exercee, sur la garde de nos livres de cla.s.se notre nom accompagne de ce verset enfantin:

Ce livre est a moi, Comme Paris est au roi; Qui veut savoir mon nom, Regarde dans ce rond,

nous ne doutions guere que nous y inscrivions des _ex-libris_, et cela aussi peu que plus tard, lorsque, entres au college, latinistes en herbe, nous y griffonions un gibet auquel etait pendu Pierrot, ill.u.s.tration suivie invariablement de ce quatrain macaronique:

Aspice Pierrot pendu, Quod librum n'a pas rendu.

Pierrot pendu non fuisset Si librum reddidisset.

A cette epoque le nom d'_Ex-libris_ n'etait connu et employe que par les savants de profession et par les hommes du monde, amateurs de livres."

A recent and more authoritative ruling is that of the Council of the _Societe Francaise des Collectionneurs d'Ex-Libris_, which not only permits autographs and other ma.n.u.script entries in books to be styled _Ex-libris_, but opens the columns of its journal to the consideration and reproduction of the armorial bearings, monograms, and devices to be found stamped on the leather bindings of books, to which it also applies the term _Ex-libris_.

In the programme issued with the first part of the _Archives de la Societe Francaise_ occurs the following paragraph dealing with this question: "Bien des personnes considerent, a bon droit, les marques imprimees en or, ou a froid sur les plats des livres, comme de veritables Ex-Libris. Ce sont, disait un erudit, les Ex-Libris Francais par excellence, leur etude est liee a celle des Ex-Libris graves. Les archives donneront une large hospitalite a tous les doc.u.ments, notes, ou determination d'armoiries que nos membres voudront bien nous communiquer."

British collectors treat these _super libros_ as things apart from ex-libris. A system which includes book-plates, autographs, and armorial bearings on bookbindings under the one term _Ex-Libris_ leads to confusion in correspondence, and is therefore to be deprecated.

The earliest known examples of ex-libris are German, and the custom of using them originated no doubt in that country, where costly bindings, with arms emblazoned on the covers, as in France and Italy, were seldom indulged in.

Earliest in the field in the art of printing, and prolific in book-making, the Germans never attached very particular importance to elegant and sumptuous bindings.

Valuing their books for their intrinsic, rather than extrinsic merits, they covered them with good stout wooden boards and strong metal clasps, and soon discovered that a printed label, or a rough woodcut of a coat-of-arms, was as useful a mode of proclaiming the owners.h.i.+p of a volume as the showy, but costly, system of heraldic emblazoning in gold, silver, and colours, adopted by their more luxurious neighbours.

Hence it is not so very uncommon to find German ex-libris dated in the early years of the sixteenth century, whereas the earliest known French plate is of a much later date. In fact, no French ex-libris of undoubted authenticity has been discovered with an earlier date than 1574, a memorable year for collectors, as being that which is also found on the earliest known English plate, the fine armorial of Sir Nicholas Bacon, a facsimile of which will be found in Mr. Griggs's valuable collection of "Examples of Armorial Book-Plates," 1884.