French Book-plates. Walter Hamilton

CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF THE PRINCIPAL HISTORICAL EVENTS HEREIN ALLUDED TO.

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      1574. Earliest known dated French book-plate, “Ex Bibliotheca Caroli Albosii.”

      The first English book-plate, that of Sir Nicholas Bacon, was also dated 1574.

      Henry III., then King of France, was assassinated August, 1589.

      1585. The earliest known French armorial book-plate, that of François de la Rochefoucauld, engraved some time before 1585.

      1589. Henry IV., King of France.

      1598. April: The Edict of Nantes was issued by Henry IV., granting religious freedom to the Reformed Church; he was assassinated by Ravaillac May 14, 1610.

      1610. Louis XIII., King, son of the above, died May 14, 1643.

      1611. The first dated armorial French book-plate, that of Alexandre Bouchart, by Leonard Gaultier.

      1613. The second dated armorial French book-plate, that of Melchior de la Vallée.

      1638. The system of showing the heraldic colours, metals, and furs on engravings by conventional lines and dots was adopted about this date, and has been in use ever since.

      1643. Louis XIV., King, son of the above, died September 1, 1715.

      1685. October. Revocation by Louis XIV. of the Edict of Nantes, followed by the flight of thousands of French Protestants (or Huguenots) to Great Britain, Holland, and America.

      1715. Louis XV., King, great-grandson of the above, died of small-pox, May 10, 1774.

      1774. Louis XVI., King, grandson of the above.

      1789. July. Surrender and destruction of the Château de la Bastille in Paris. This marks the actual commencement of the French Revolution.

      1790. June. Abolition of all titles and armorial bearings.

      1793. Louis XVI. beheaded January 21, and was, according to Legitimist reckoning, succeeded by his young son, Louis XVII., who, however, never reigned, and is supposed to have died in prison on June 8, 1795. The government was Republican in name until

      1804. May. Napoleon Buonaparte proclaimed Emperor.

      1808. New nobility of France created, titles and heraldry revived.

      1814. Abdication of Napoleon in favour of his son, Napoleon II., who, however, never reigned.

      1814. Restoration of the Monarchy under Louis XVIII., brother of Louis XVI.; he died September, 1824.

      1824. Charles X., King, brother of the above, deposed in July, 1830; succeeded by his cousin—

      1830. Louis-Philippe, as King of the French.

      1848. February. Abdication and flight of Louis-Philippe. Proclamation of a Republic; Louis Napoleon elected President of the Republic, December, 1848.

      1852. December. Proclamation of Napoleon III. as Emperor of the French (the Second Empire).

      1870. Overthrow of the Empire; Republic proclaimed.

FRENCH EX-LIBRIS.

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CHAPTER I.

       INTRODUCTION.

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T 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. Aglaüs 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-Malassis, “Les Ex-Libris Français,” 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 “Petite Revue d’Ex-Libris Alsaciens,” by Auguste Stoeber, 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 Illustré 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-Malassis opens his work with the expression: “Pas un des dictionnaires de la langue française n’a admis le terme ex-libris, composé de deux mots latins qui signifient des livres … faisant partie des livres. II est pourtant consacré par l’usage et se dit de toute marque de propriété appliquée à l’extérieur ou à l’intérieur 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 siècle” (Paris, 4to, 1866–1877):

      “Ex-Libris,

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