- About Bookbinding -

DE Thou and LE Gascon

After the death of Henry II., the great binders of his reign disappear absolutely; there is no trace of their handiwork or of their tools. Perhaps they were Huguenots, as French historians of the art have surmised, and were done to death, or fled the country, before the promulgation of the Edict of Nantes in 1598. Whatever their fate, the tradition was broken, and the art of bookbinding developed on other lines than theirs; and the personality which next comes into view is that of a collector - Jacques Auguste De Thou.

When Grolier was in danger of his life De Thou's father saved him, and Grolier gave the elder De Thou four of the best books of his library. The son was then only nine years old, but perhaps this was the beginning of his love for books - a sacred fire which thus passed from Grolierius to Thuanus by a sort of apostolic succession. Born in 1553, De Thou traveled from 1573 to 1582, paying a visit in 1576 to Plantin. In 1593 he was appointed to the custody of the books of the king, Henry IV., succeeding Jacques Amyot, the translator of Plutarch's "Lives," and of the "Daphnis et Chloe" of Longus. In his new post De Thou was able to save for the nation the library of Catherine de' Medici.

Swift characteristically tells us that "some know books as they do lords; learn their titles exactly, and then brag of their acquaintance;" and there are always book-collectors of this sort. But De Thou was a book-lover of another kind; he knew his books, he used them well, he lived with them; and to-day he lives by the fame they have given him, since he died in 1617. It is the love of books which has saved his name from oblivion, as M. Clement de Ris declares in his pleasant gossip about the "Amateurs d'Autrefois." "Distinguished magistrate,

remarkable writer, historian of rare merit, statesman of exceptional common sense and of great foresight, what survives is the bibliophile. Who remembers that he took part in the abjuring of Henry IV., or that he was one of the most active negotiators of the Edict of Nantes? No one. Who reads the 'History of his Time' ? -' that grand and faithful history,' as Bossuet called it. Again, no one. But ask any petty dealer in second-hand books what the emblem was with which he marked his books. He will answer you without the error of a letter. A collector, if he has but an elevated taste, is moved by respect for the past; he seeks the driftwood of time which the present despises. The future pays the debt of the past" - and hands the collector's name down to posterity.