books:  affording a very agreeable coup-d’oeil.  Indeed the principal division of the library, the further end of which commands a pleasant prospect, is worthy of an establishment belonging to the capital of an empire.  The kindness of M. Hebert, and of his assistant, rendered my frequent sojournings therein yet more delectable.  The portrait of his uncle, M. MOYSANT, is among the ornaments of the chief room.  Though Moysant was large of stature, his lungs were feeble, and his constitution was delicate.  At the age of nineteen, he was appointed professor of grammar and rhetoric in the college of Lisieux.  He then went to Paris, and studied under Beau and Batteux; when, applying himself more particularly to the profession of physic, he returned to Caen, in his thirtieth year, and put on the cap of Doctor of medicine; but he wanted either nerves or stamina for the successful exercise of his profession.  He had cured a patient, after painful and laborious attention, of a very serious illness; but his patient chose to take liberties too soon with his convalescent state.  He was imprudent:  had a relapse; and was hurried to his grave.  Moysant took it seriously to heart, and gave up his business in precipitancy and disgust.  In fact, he was of too sanguine and irritable a temperament for the display of that cool, cautious, and patient conduct, which it behoveth all young physicians to adopt, ere they can possibly hope to attain the honours or the wealth of the Halfords and Matons of the day!  Our Moysant returned to the study of his beloved belles-lettres.  At that moment, luckily, the Society of the Jesuits was suppressed; and he was called by the King, in 1763, to fill the chair of Rhetoric in one of the finest establishments of that body at Caen.  He afterwards successively became perpetual Secretary of the Academy of Sciences, and Vice-President of the Society of Agriculture.  He was next dubbed by the University, Dean of the faculty of arts, and was selected to pronounce the public oration upon the marriage of the unfortunate Louis XVI. with Marie Antoinette.  He was now a marked and distinguished public character.  The situation of PUBLIC LIBRARIAN was only wanting to render his reputation complete, and that he instantly obtained upon the death of his predecessor.  With these occupations, he united that of instructing the English (who were always in the habit of visiting Caen,) in the French language; and he obtained, in return, from some of his adult pupils, a pretty good notion of the laws and liberties of Old England.

The Revolution now came on:  when, like many of his respectable brethren, he hailed it at first as the harbinger of national reformation and prosperity.  But he had soon reason to find that he had been deceived.  However, in the fervour of the moment, and upon the suppression of the monastic and other public libraries, he received a very wide and unqualified commission to search all the libraries in the department of Calvados,