About the year 1846, I was invited by M. A. Farrens, a skilful restorer of old books, to see in his workshop a Dance Macabre in quarto, imprinted on paper, at Paris, toward the end of the Fifteenth Century; a rare volume which he was restoring for M. Techner.

The portions already cleaned and restored, compared with those still untouched, excited my admiration. The numerous worm holes, the torn places, had disappeared through an application of paper-paste, so well joined, so well blended in the mass, that I could hardly detect the boundaries of the restorations. The letters and wood-cuts suffering from lacunae had been reformed with great skill on a new foundation. The soiled surfaces of the pages had entirely disappeared before I know not what scraping or chemical action. In a word, M. Farrens was putting into use every secret of restoration to give again to this volume its original lustre.

Ah well! today, I confess, that if I possessed this book in the dilapidated state in which I saw it, I would leave it just as it stood, and limit myself to the indispensable repair of a new and solid binding. Its worn and soiled condition came, very probably, from the frequent and pious turning of its pages, in that monachal perseverance of prayer of which our century knows nothing. Its shocking and decrepit condition had, to my eyes, a secret in harmony with all books of the kind, which, from each page, recall to us our insignificance.

No doubt many amateurs will not agree with me in this; some, perhaps, will declare I have arrived at a monstrous degree of cynicism for a bibliophile. However, I will supply the means of restoring at least a part of their original freshness to books and old prints badly treated by time or by the indifference of their earlier possessors.

When a print is soiled with spots or foreign color, especially in the most interesting places, one can hardly lay it away in a portfolio without making some attempt to remove or reduce the strange tints which appear on it. This is the part of my present work most difficult to discuss, while being the most useful. My simple notions of chemistry are not always sufficient and perhaps, some day, some chemist especially trained in analysis and decomposition may, with advantage, rewrite this portion of my work. I will at least record, however, a large number of satisfactory results which I have obtained and even repeated on fragments of proofs on unsized paper, this last being the most unfavorable of all conditions. (*)

(*) In a note on this subject, Bonnardot warns the amateur against careless or unskillful use of the various chemicals mentioned, as many of them, improperly handled, not only irreparably damage the page or print, but also inllict serious injury on the operator himself. M. S. B.

The first difficulty comes when the nature of the spot is not easily recognized. This yellow spot which resists both washing and bleaching, may perhaps be formed by some greasy body or by some metallic oxide, and one must proceed carefully on any hypothesis which may be formed. In such cases, where experiments must be tried, it is necessary to know some chemical substance which can be first applied, to the end that, if the spot persists, the chemicals used in attempting its removal will not, at least, render it impervious to further efforts. It is not possible to set positive rules for this. I have tried indifferently the action of an acid before that of an alkali, and vice versa. Only, I have been careful, before renewing any experiments to soak the print for several hours in cold water to stop the action of any chemicals already used and to annul their traces and effects.

< Removing Stains Part 1