and Pannartz’s edition of the De Civitate Dei of St. Austin, of the date of 1470; and a large folio of Gering’s impression of the Sermons of Leonard de Utino printed about the year 1478.  This latter was rather a fine book.  A little black-letter Latin Bible by Froben, of the date of 1495, somewhat tempted me; but I could not resist asking, in a manner half serious and half jocose, whether a napoleon would not secure me the possession of a piquant little volume of black-letter tracts, printed by my old friend Guido Mercator?[163] The Abbe smiled:  observing—­“mon ami, on fait voir les livres ici; on les lit meme:  mais on ne les vend pas.”  I felt the force of this pointed reply:  and was resolved never again to ask an Ecclesiastic to part with a black-letter volume, even though it should be printed by “my old friend Guido Mercator.”

Seeing there was very little more deserving of investigation, I enquired of my amiable guide about the “LIBRARY OF THE CORDELIERS,” of which he had just made mention.  He told me that it consisted chiefly of canon and civil law, and had been literally almost destroyed:  that he had contrived however to secure a great number of “rubbishing theological books,” (so he called them!) which he sold for three sous a piece—­and with the produce of which he bought many excellent works for the library.  I should like to have had the sifting of this “theological rubbish!” It remained only to thank the Abbe most heartily for his patient endurance of my questions and searches, and particularly to apologise for bringing him from his surrounding friends.  He told me, beginning with a “soyez tranquille,” that the matter was not worth either a thought or a syllable; and ere we quitted the library, he bade me observe the written entries of the numbers of students who came daily thither to read.  There were generally (he told me) from fifteen to twenty “hard at it”—­and I saw the names of not fewer than ninety-two who aspired to the honour and privilege of having access to the BIBLIOTHECA PICHONIANA.

For the third time, in the same day, I visited Monsieur Adam; to carry away, like a bibliomaniacal Jason, the fleece I had secured.  I saw there a grave, stout gentleman—­who saluted me on my entrance, and who was introduced to me by Monsieur A. by the name of SEGUIN.  He had been waiting (he said) full three quarters of an hour to see me, and concluded by observing, that, although a man in business, he had aspired to the honour of authorship.  He had written, in fact, two rather interesting—­but wretchedly, and incorrectly printed—­duodecimo volumes, relating to the BOCAGE,[164] in the immediate vicinity of Vire; and was himself the sole vender and distributer of his publications.  On my expressing a wish to possess these books, he quitted the premises, and begged I would wait his return with a copy or two of them.  While he was gone, M. Adam took the opportunity of telling me that he was a rich, respectable