Such, my dear friend, is the necessarily rapid—­and, I fear, consequently imperfect—­sketch which I send you of the general character of the BIBLIOTHEQUE DU ROI; both as respects its dead and its living treasures.  It remains to be seen how this sketch will be completed.—–­ and I hereby give you notice, that my next letter will contain some account of a few of the more ancient, curious, and splendid MANUSCRIPTS—­to be followed by a second letter, exclusively devoted to a similar account of the PRINTED BOOKS.  If I execute this task according to my present inclinations—­and with the disposition which I now feel, together with the opportunities which have been afforded me—­it will not, I trust, be said that I have been an idle or unworthy visitor of this magnificent collection.

[16] [Mons. Crapelet takes fire at the above passage:  simply because he
    misunderstands it.  In not one-word, or expression of it, is there any
    thing which implies, directly or indirectly, that “it would be
    difficult to find another public establishment where the officers are
    more active, more obliging, more anxious to satisfy the Public than in
    the above.”  I am talking only of dress—­and commending the silk
    stockings of Mons. Van Praet at the expense of those by whom he is
    occasionally surrounded.]

[17] So, even NOW:  1829.

[18] In the year 1814, the late M. Millin published a dissertation upon
    this medal, to which he prefixed an engraving of the figure of Louis. 
    There can indeed be but one opinion that the Engraving is unworthy of
    the Original.

[For an illustration of the Medallic History of France, I scarcely recollect any one object of Art which would be more gratifying, as well as apposite, than a faithful Engraving of such a Medal:  and I call upon my good friend M. DU CHESNE to set such a History on foot.  There is however another medal, of the same Monarch, of a smaller size, but of equal merit of execution, which has been selected to grace the pages of this second edition—­in the OPPOSITE PLATE.  The inscription is as follows:  LUDOVICO XII.  REGNANTE CAESARE ALTERO.  GAUDET OMNIS NATIO:  from which it is inferred that the Medal was struck in consequence of the victory of Ravenna, or of Louis’s triumphant campaigns in Italy.  A short but spirited account is given of these campaigns in Le Noir’s Musee des Monumens Francais, tome ii. p. 145-7.]

[19] ["And it is Mr. DIBDIN who makes this confession!  Let us render
    justice to his impartiality on this occasion.  Such a confession ought
    to cause some regret to those who go to seek engravings in London.” 
    CRAPELET, vol. ii. p. 89.  The reader shall make his own remark on the
    force, if there be any, of this gratuitous piece of criticism of the
    French Translator.]