story of the copy of Homer, on large paper, which Aldus, the great
Venetian printer, presented to Francis I. After the death of the
late Marquis of Hastings, better known as an owner of horses than of
books, his possessions were brought to the hammer. With the
instinct, the flair, as the French say, of the bibliophile, M.
Ambroise Firmin Didot, the biographer of Aldus, guessed that the
marquis might have owned something in his line. He sent his agent
over to England, to the country town where the sale was to be held.
M. Didot had his reward. Among the books which were dragged out of
some mouldy store-room was the very Aldine Homer of Francis I., with
part of the original binding still clinging to the leaves. M. Didot
purchased the precious relic, and sent it to what M. Fertiault (who
has written a century of sonnets on bibliomania) calls the hospital
for books.


Le dos humide, je l'eponge;
Ou manque un coin, vite une allonge,
Pour tous j'ai maison de sante.


M. Didot, of course, did not practise this amateur surgery himself,
but had the arms and devices of Francis I. restored by one of those
famous binders who only work for dukes, millionnaires, and
Rothschilds.

During the religious wars and the troubles of the Fronde, it is
probable that few people gave much time to the collection of books.
The illustrious exceptions are Richelieu and Cardinal Mazarin, who
possessed a "snuffy Davy" of his own, an indefatigable prowler among