Edwards Henry Sutherland
Old and New Paris: Its History, Its People, and Its Places, v. 1
CHAPTER XVIII
THE NATIONAL LIBRARY AND THE BOURSE
The “King’s Library” – Francis I. and the Censorship – The Imperial Library – The Bourse.
THE most interesting edifice in the Rue Richelieu is the Library, called, according to the existing form of Government, Royal, National, or Imperial. Its original title was King’s Library (Bibliothèque du Roi), and it has been suggested that, to avoid the frequent changes of name to which the instability of things in France seems to expose this valuable institution, it should be called, once for all, Bibliothèque de France. The nucleus of the National Library, with its innumerable volumes, was formed by Charles V., and received considerable additions, considerable at least for the time, when books were scarce, from Louis XI. Under the reign of the latter sovereign so much value was attached to books of a rare character that, to obtain the loan of a certain volume written by the Arabian physician Rhazes, the king had to furnish security, and bind himself by the most solemn obligations to return it. According to Dulaure, this pious monarch had but a poor reputation for returning books, combined with an eagerness for getting them into his possession. “In 1472,” says the author of “The History of Paris” and of the “Singularités Historiques,” “Hermann Von Stathoen came from Mayence to Paris entrusted by the famous printers Scheffer and Hanequis to sell a certain number of printed books. While at Paris he was attacked by fever and died. In virtue of the droit d’aubain the king’s officers took possession of the books and money of the defunct, sending the latter to the king’s exchequer and the former to the king’s library. This proceeding was by no means to the taste of Scheffer and Hanequis, who complained to the emperor, and obtained from him letters addressed to Louis XI. in which the French king was invited to restore both books and money. Louis XI. admitted the justice of the claim, and on the twenty-first of April, 1475, issued Letters Patent in these terms: ‘Desiring to treat favourably the subjects (Scheffer and Hanequis) of the Archbishop of Mayence, and having regard to the trouble and labour which the persons in question have had in connection with the art and craft of printing, and to the profit and utility derived from it, both for the public good and for the increase of learning; and considering that the value and estimation of the said books and other property which have come to our knowledge do not amount to more than 2,425 crowns and three sous, at which the claimants have valued them, we have for the above considerations and others liberally condescended to cause the said sum of 2,425 crowns and three sous to be restored to the said Conrad Hanequis.’” Dulaure, after citing this letter, adds that the restitution was made in such a manner that the printers received every year from the King’s Treasury a mere driblet of 800 livres, or francs, until the entire sum had been repaid.
Louis XII. had formed a library of his own at Blois, to which he added those collected by his predecessors. Francis I., called the Father of Letters, honoured writers, and had a particular taste for manuscripts; but he detested printed books, and, like the reactionists of the period, deplored the invention of printing, which the previous occupants of his throne had looked upon as of the greatest benefit to mankind. On the 13th of June, 1535, he ordered all the printing offices in the kingdom to be closed, and prohibited, under the severest penalties, the printing of any fresh books. Some have supposed that the king’s sole object was, by preventing the reproduction of books, to keep up the value of the manuscripts which he so much prized. Against this view, however, must be placed the fact that when, in reply to remonstrances from various deputations, he rescinded his order against the printing offices a month after its issue, he at the same time limited the number of printing offices to twelve, which were only allowed to print books approved beforehand and deemed absolutely necessary. Thus Francis I. must be regarded as the inventor of that nefarious institution, the Censorship, which followed the invention of printing as shadow follows light. After the lapse of a century or two, the Censorship was destined to do harm to France, even in a commercial sense; for numbers of books which the Censor would never have allowed to be brought out in France were printed and sold in England, Holland, and Germany.
“Whoever opposes the freedom of the Press,” wrote Mercier on this subject two centuries and a half after Francis I.’s institution of the Censorship, “is a professed foe to improvement, and, of course, to mankind. But the very obstacles which are laid in an author’s way are an inducement to break through all restrictions. ‘It is in man’s nature,’ observes Juvenal, ‘to wish for those things which are prohibited merely because they are so.’ Were we permitted to enjoy even a moderate freedom authors would seldom fall into licentiousness. It may be set down as an axiom that the civil liberty of any nation may be estimated by the liberty of its Press. If so, we daily take new strides towards slavery, since the ministers are every day forging new fetters for the Press. What is the consequence of this unnatural restraint? All books published here on the history, political interests, and even manners of foreign nations are the most incomplete and despicable productions that ever disgraced a country. If despotism could, as it were, murder our thoughts in their impenetrable sanctuary, it would do so; but as it is beyond its power to pluck out the tongue of the true philosopher, or deprive him of the use of his instructive hand, other means are employed – a State inquisition is set on foot, and the boundaries of literature and all its avenues are blocked up by a world of satellites who endeavour to interrupt the slightest correspondence between truth and mankind. Fruitless endeavours! So preposterous an attempt against our natural and civil rights serves only to expose to public hatred the wretches who dare thus far to encroach on man’s first privilege, that of thinking for himself. Reason daily gets ground, its powerful light shines to every eye, and all the witchcraft of tyranny cannot plunge it into utter darkness. In vain will despotism dread or persecute men of genius; all its efforts cannot put out the light of truth; and the sentence it awards against the injustice of men in power shall be confirmed by indignant posterity. You brave inhabitants of Great Britain! ye are strangers to our shameful slavery. Never, ah, never give up the freedom of the Press; it is the pledge of your liberty. It may be truly said that you are the only representatives of mankind. You alone have hitherto supported its dignity, and human reason, expelled from the Continent, has found a safer asylum in your fortunate island, whence it spreads its rays all over the world. We are so insignificant when compared with you, that you could hardly comprehend the excess of our humiliation.” After this apostrophe, Mercier continues: – “If we next weigh the restraint laid on the Press in the scale of commercial interest, we shall find it greatly preponderate against the trade of this metropolis. The graphomania is not without its absurdities and disadvantages, but it is the chief support of different tradesmen. The Montagne Sainte-Geneviève is peopled by hawkers, bookbinders, etc., who must starve if not permitted to carry on the only business to which they were brought up. Meanwhile, as the desire of publishing their thoughts is common to all men, the money which would be laid out amongst our own countrymen is paid to the printers of Holland, Flanders, and Germany.”
While discouraging the multiplication of printed books, Francis I. formed a valuable collection of manuscripts, many of which were copies made by his orders in Italy. He brought together some 450 manuscripts of various kinds, part of them original, the rest transcribed from the Greek (the king’s favourite language), or from Eastern and other tongues. French literature was represented in the library of Francis I. by the works of Louise de Savoie and her sister Marguerite.
Simple as was his collection of manuscripts and printed books, Francis I. found it necessary to place them in the charge of an official bearing the title of Master of the King’s Library.
The library of Francis was at Fontainebleau, whence Henri IV. removed it to the College of Clermont at Paris. Catherine de Medicis formed a collection of books, including eight hundred Greek and Latin manuscripts, which she added to those already preserved at the College of Clermont, the former habitation of the Jesuits, which, after their expulsion, was taken possession of by the Crown. When the Jesuits returned the books had to be removed, and they found a new abode in the house of the Cordeliers, on the site at present occupied by the School of Medicine. Under Louis XIII. the books were placed by the Cordeliers in the house belonging to the Order, but not occupied by it, in the Rue de la Harpe, and from the Rue de la Harpe they were, at the direction of the Minister Colbert, carried across the river to a house in the Rue Vivienne. The private library of the Count de Béthune, containing numerous works on the history of France, was next added to the Royal collection; and after the death of Cardinal Mazarin, his library was purchased from the heirs by Louis XV. and joined to the king’s library, now of considerable value and importance. It has been seen that the library, justly called royal, was founded and constantly increased by the kings of France; and during the long and glorious reign of Louis XIV. the number of books on its shelves was raised from five thousand to seventy thousand.
A decree of Henri II. had ordered all booksellers to send copies of whatever works they produced to the king’s library; and this was renewed and made thoroughly effective by the Great Monarch.
In 1697 the Mission of Father Bouvet brought back from China sixty-two volumes in the Chinese language and presented them to the Royal library. These books formed the nucleus of a collection which since that time has gone on constantly augmenting. In 1700 the Archbishop of Rheims presented to the Royal library five hundred Hebrew, Greek, and Latin manuscripts; and it received in the same year two manuscripts from Spanvenfeld, master of the ceremonies at the Court of Stockholm. In this year, too, a number of Latin manuscripts, including the works of Catullus, Propertius, and Tibullus, were bought at Rome for the French library.
In 1706 an ingenious theft was committed at this library by an apostate priest named Aymon. Wishing, as he said, to consult certain works in order to demonstrate the errors of heretics, he asked for a number of manuscripts, and, carrying them off, sold them at large prices in Holland.
After the Revolution, the Republican Government threw open to all comers a library which had previously been reserved for the use of a privileged few; and for many years the libraries of the French capital (for others in addition to the library founded by the French kings had now been formed) were the only ones in Europe which could be entered by the public at large. This fact scarcely harmonises with the assertion made by many writers, and insisted upon by M. Castil Blaze, that the Grand Opéra was installed by the Republican Government in a house just opposite the famous library in order that when the Opera House met with the usual fate of theatres the library facing it might at the same time be burnt. A few members of the Commune of Paris may have been wild enough to declaim against all literature produced before the Revolution, on the supposition that it must of necessity be impregnated with feudal, monarchical, and generally anti-Liberal ideas. But the Republic as a whole proved in many ways its love of enlightenment. It was the Republic which established all over France colleges and gymnasiums at fees of a few shillings a month; which called, free of cost, to the lectures of the College of France or la Sorbonne all who wished to hear them, and fixed at a nominal sum the examination fee for students desiring to receive degrees in arts or sciences from the University of Paris.
During the Napoleonic period the Imperial Library, as it was now called, was enriched with numerous acquisitions from the countries invaded and conquered by the French army; and indignation is expressed even now by French writers at the spoils of war having been given back by the Allies, in their turn victorious, to the rightful owners. “The foreign powers,” writes on this subject an eminent French publicist, “profited by their position after the fall of the Empire to claim all that had been carried away from their libraries at the time of our victories, now as trophies, now in virtue of formal stipulations in the treaties of peace. Austria was the first to demand restitution, and all that was taken from Vienna in 1809 had been given back when the return of Napoleon from Elba put an end to any further dealings in such matters. In 1815, after the Waterloo Campaign, Austria demanded for the Italian provinces annexed to her empire, and for Italy generally, all the works of literature and art that our armies had taken from the Italians; and on the 4th of October, 1815, we were deprived of a magnificent artistic monument acquired through the bravery of our soldiers.”
Mention has already been made of a theft of manuscripts – not a wholesale robbery of works of art such as the Allies, in restoring certain statues to their rightful owners, were accused of committing; and on various occasions, manuscripts, books, and models have been purloined by visitors to the library of the Rue Richelieu. The last misdeed of this kind occurred in 1848, when a member of the Institute, M. Libri, was charged with stealing a book. Not caring to meet the accusation, he quitted the country, and in his absence was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment.
If anyone, Frenchman or foreigner, enters a public library in Paris to look at any particular book he cannot, as at the British Museum Library, consult the catalogue himself; one of the librarians will do this for him, and do it in effect as well as such a thing can be done. But the reader must know beforehand what book, or, at least, what kind of book he wants. However learned and however attentive a librarian may be, he is not likely to make his researches with the same assiduity and care as the earnest student occupied with one sole object. On the other hand, the librarian, as a man of learning, will know the literature of any one subject better than the ordinary student, and much better than the casual reader.
Besides the National Library of the Rue Richelieu, Paris possesses the Mazarin Library, the Library of the Arsenal, of Sainte-Geneviève, of the Institute, of the Town, of the Louvre, of the National Assembly, of the Senate, and of a number of museums and learned societies.
As for the readers, they are as varied in character and often as original as those of our own British Museum. In the French, as in the English, reading-room one sees, side by side with writers of distinction, unhappy scribblers, who, in London, when the Museum closes at night, look at the thermometer and weathercock to see if Hyde Park or the casual ward be the wiser dormitory. It is merely to avoid ennui that many readers resort alike to the Bibliothèque Nationale and to our own Museum. Men of private means, at once with and without resources, can there escape from their own society, and, whatever their taste in literature, find relief in some book. Noise is carefully prevented, and there are even readers who volunteer active aid in maintaining silence. If anyone, for instance, speaks above a whisper, they hiss at him like serpents, or, wheeling round in their chairs, fold their arms and glare at him until he desists and leaves them once more to their sepulchral pursuits.
Both in France and in England the public libraries have two other classes of readers. First, there is the somnolent reader, who stares for a few minutes vacantly at a book, drops, nods, and finally collapses with a snore. The music of the nose, however, is against the rules, and promptly brings down an “attendant.” On the other hand – though, fortunately, as a rare specimen – we find the particularly wakeful reader, who in his neighbour’s absence makes a clean sweep of that gentleman’s property, and who is apt to attire himself in the wrong hat and overcoat, and to walk off with an innocent and even injured air.
The most important edifice in the Rue Vivienne – or, rather, in the open space which a portion of the Rue Vivienne faces – is the Bourse, or Exchange, of which the architecture so closely resembles that of the Madeleine. Yet there is nothing in the Bourse to suggest a house of prayer. At the entrance of the St. Petersburg Bourse stands a chapel, in which the operator for the rise or for the fall may invoke the protection of Heaven for the success of his own particular speculation. The noise of the dealers crying out prices and shouting offers and acceptances is far less suggestive of the “House of God” than of a “den of thieves,” to which, it must be feared, it presents in many respects a considerable likeness.
The origin of the word “Bourse,” which has been adopted by almost every country in Europe, with the striking exception of England, seems evident enough, though it would be a mistake to suppose that it is derived from bourse, a purse. According to the best etymologist, the name of Bourse comes from the Exchange established in the sixteenth century at Bruges in the house of one Van der Bourse, who, in the well-known punning spirit of heraldry, had adopted for his arms three bourses or purses.
The most ancient Bourse in France is said to be that of Lyons; and the next ancient that of Toulouse, which dates from 1549. The Bourse of Rouen was established a few years later, while that of Paris was not legally constituted until 1724.
Paris, nevertheless, has possessed since the sixteenth century several places of exchange: now on the Pont au Change, now in the courtyard of the Palais de Justice, and then for a considerable time at the Hôtel de Soissons, in the Rue Quincampoix, which was the scene of the wild speculations in connection with Law’s Mississipi scheme. In 1720 the Hôtel de Soissons was closed by the Government, and the formation of an institution to be called the Bourse was at the same time decreed.
The Bourse was at first installed in the Hôtel de Nevers, in the Rue Richelieu, where the National Library is now established. After the Revolution, the Bourse was for a time closed by the Convention. But it was soon re-opened, and under the Directory was located in the Church of the Petits Pères. Under the Consulate and the Empire the Bourse was held in the Palais Royal. The Restoration moved it to the Rue Feydau, and it there remained until in 1826 it was definitively fixed in the palatial abode which it now occupies.
The cost of building the Bourse as it now exists was defrayed by a subscription among the merchants of Paris, assisted by a grant from the State and from the city. Until Napoleon’s time, or, at least, from the period of the Revolution to that of the Empire, the occupation of stockbroker or agent de change was free to all who chose to take out a licence. Napoleon, however, limited the number of agents de change, or, as it turned out, the number of their firms, for it soon became the practice for several persons to club together in order to buy the necessary licence and to deposit the caution money.
The Bourse, in marked opposition to the rigid rule observed at our own Stock Exchange, was open to everyone until 1856, when the price of admission was fixed at one franc to the financial, and half a franc to the commercial department. An annual ticket of admission could be obtained for 150 francs to the financial side, and seventy-eight francs to the commercial. This species of tax was imposed with the view of restraining the passion for speculation which had sprung up among the lower classes, but it was abolished by M. Achille Fould, Napoleon III.’s able Finance Minister, in 1862.
The hours of the Bourse, as fixed by law, not being sufficiently long for the tastes or necessities of speculators, supplementary bourses under the name of Petite Bourse, have from time to time been held in the Passage de l’Opéra and on the Boulevard des Italiens. These informal assemblies are sometimes tolerated, sometimes repressed, by the Government.
Ponsard, in one of his versified comedies, describes the Paris Bourse as (to translate the poet freely) —
“A market where all merchandise is keenly bought and sold;
A genuine field of battle where instead of blood flows gold.”
