French Book-plates Part 19

Dieu fut! et l'ouvrier adora son image,"

was placed on his book-plate by the philosophical atheist Sylvain Marechal, who wrote a work ent.i.tled "Fragmens d'un poeme moral sur Dieu," dated 1781.

David Koning remarks:

"L'Art c'est la vie.

La Nature c'est la mort."

Whilst Patrice Salin fairly gives himself away:

"Tel que je suis, prends moi."

Others have used mottoes which come under no special category, such as that on an engraved label bearing the name _J. G. Lafont_:

"Des plaisirs sans apprets, des amis peu nombreux Les livres, les beaux arts, et la philosophie Voila le vrai bonheur, il suffit a mes voeux."

"Tots besoingners tots escripre."

_Valentin Mourie._ (See page 238.)

"Point de Roses sans epignes."

_Edward S. Potter._

"Honneur a qui rapporte."

_L. Delatre._ (See page 240.)

"La mort n'y mord."

Ex-Libris _Fr. Serrier_. (See page 242.)

"Vive la Joie."

On the plate of _M. Joy_.

In 1791 Monsieur J. B. Michaud cried aloud on his book-plate for "_La Liberte ou la Mort_" and many others adopted the phrase, at a time when Death was certainly more _en evidence_ than Liberty.

Poor Leon Gambetta, probably the most daring and original of modern French politicians, had his book-plate inscribed "_Vouloir c'est Pouvoir_," an axiom which he, the son of a poor provincial grocer, had proved correct up to a certain point.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BOOK-PLATE OF FR. SERRIER.]

There is no article in the "Dictionnaire des Girouettes" more laughable than that devoted to Monsieur Nicholas Francois de Neufchateau, who, not content with being a political turncoat of the first order, celebrated each of his changes of faith by songs in honour of his new ideal of government. These poems, here side by side in the dictionary, proclaim the man at once a venal weatherc.o.c.k and a conceited prig.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BOOK-PLATE OF JACQUES FLACH.]

He was born in 1752; before the outbreak of the Revolution he was a lawyer in Paris; afterwards he became President of the National a.s.sembly, when he called King Louis XVI. a traitor, yet this did not prevent his being sent to prison by Barrere in 1793. On his release he wrote a poem in honour of Barrere; later on he joined with the senate in advising Napoleon to create himself emperor. The emperor could do no less in return than create Neufchateau a Count of the Empire. What became of him on the Restoration does not appear, except that in 1815 he obtained permission to dedicate a volume of his fables to the king.

To the end of time the ex-libris of Monsieur N. Francois de Neufchateau will not only pompously proclaim all the t.i.tles given to him by Napoleon I., but describe in verse the blazon of his arms, in which, as he says, the useful and the ornamental are curiously blended, the whole being surmounted by one of David's _toques_, with the five waving ostrich feathers denoting senatorial rank.

Yet this was the man who had previously written:

"Ces rubans, ces cordons, et ces chaines dorees: Des esclaves des rois ces pompeuses livrees, Ne sont que des hochets dont la vaine splendeur Deguise le neant d'une folle grandeur."

M. de Neufchateau was a busy man and a versatile, writing on politics, social economy, history, and agriculture in turns, but it is as a _poet_ that he will be known to posterity through his book-plate, which collectors will ever prize as a monument of egregious vanity.

M. Francois de Neufchateau died in 1828.

There is a chapter in "Ex-Libris Ana" (Paris, L. Joly) devoted to ma.n.u.script inscriptions of ownership in books; one is given, as having been commonly written in his books, by an author named Colle:

"A Colle ce livre apartint Auparavant qu'il te parvint."

[Ill.u.s.tration: BOOK-PLATE OF N. FRANcOIS DE NEUFCHATEAU.

Dans un siecle ou l'or seul fut un objet d'envie, De l'or je ne fus point epris.

J'aimai le bien public, j'y devouai ma vie, J'en ai recu le digne prix: Du plus grand des Heros l'estime peu commune M'a dote de cet ecusson; Honneur bien preferable aux dons de la fortune Il m'offre une double lecon.

L'agreable est ici figure par le Cygne, Et l'utile par les Epis: Trop heureux, en effet, qui serait juge digne De ces emblemes reunis!

O mes livres cheris! conservez cette image, Seul tresor que je laisserai; Et, long temps apres moi, rendez encore hommage A la main qui m'a decore!

Ce livre fait partie de la bibliotheque du Senateur Comte de l'Empire,

N. FRANcOIS DE NEUFCHATEAU,

Le premier des Presidens du Senat Conservateur, Grand Officier de la Legion d'Honneur, t.i.tulaire de la Senatorerie de Bruxelles, L'un des quarante de la Cla.s.se de l'Inst.i.tut qui succede a l'Academie Francaise, President de la Societe d'Agriculture de Paris pour la sixieme fois en 1811, etc.]

Contrasting with this schoolboy rhyme is the sad farewell to her children, written by Marie Antoinette in her prayer-book only a few hours before she went to the scaffold:

"Ce 16 Octobre, a 4 h. du matin. Mon Dieu! ayez pitie de moi! mes yeux n'ont plus de larmes pour prier pour vous, mes pauvres enfants. Adieu, adieu!

"Marie Antoinette."

Scarcely does the world contain a more pathetic doc.u.ment.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BOOK-PLATE OF MARIE-ELISABETH-JOSEPH WEIGEL.]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XV.

BOOK-PLATES OF SOME FAMOUS MEN.

The name of Francois Rabelais, priest, doctor, wit, satirist, and philanthropist, eclipses all other early French writers. In "Les Portraits de Rabelais" (1880), M. Georges d'Albenas a.s.serted that a certain Professor C. Cavalier possessed an Aldine Plato in which was a piquant ex-libris of the ill.u.s.trious Rabelais, of undoubted authenticity.

It is singular that such an a.s.sertion, made so long ago, should have received so little attention. Could it have been verified, the plate would certainly be one of the most precious relics in the world, not only as a personal souvenir of the creator of Gargantua and Pantagruel, but as the very earliest known French ex-libris.

As Rabelais died in 1553 his book-plate would necessarily be at least twenty years earlier than that of Alboise of Autun, which is dated 1574, and probably even some years older than that.

But in the earlier edition of this treatise, I remarked that it was scarcely credible that such a treasure as this could exist without having become generally known to collectors of literary curios, who would, long ere now, have fully described the book-plate of Francois Rabelais.

This paragraph was noted by several French collectors, and more particularly by Doctor L. Bouland, President of the French Society, who at once put himself in communication with M. Georges d'Albenas.