Charles Nodier

“ It is certain that the reader of to-day is somewhat at a loss in the company of a book of Nodier’s, and feels very much as when, in a military panorama, he sees the wheel of a real caisson, and often a veri{11}table cannon and cannon-ball, which at first sight blend with the painted canvas, until it is difficult to say where the actual ends and the illusion begins. ”

“ The love of books was such a part of his life that when some one asked for his autograph, to add to one of his lithographic portraits,—a picture in which he lives again, peaceful, mischievous, and be{22}nevolent, all at the same time, like a citizen of the true, liberal, and literary race,—he could not refrain from declaring, in a half page which is reproduced in facsimile, that of all passions that of the book-collector is ever the best. ”

“ The happiest among all men is he who has at his command, and accurately arranged, a faithful transcription of the title-pages of all known books. It is nothing to him if all the productions of printing are destroyed in the next revolution which the perfection of progress promises us. He can leave to posterity the complete catalogue of the universal library. He would have admirable forethought in seeing from afar the necessity for compiling this inventory of civilization. A few years more, and civilization will be no longer spoken about.
“God forgive me, Theodore,” said Silvestre ”

“ Authors of every kind and sort, philosophers, historians, poets, novelists, who could not be wafted to immortality by the most alluring advertisements, and whose works go unheeded{47} from the shelves of the store to the banks of the Seine, a deep Lethe, where they contemplate, while decaying, the certain end of their presumptive flight. ”

“ These two charming minds have created laughter more than once when, in answer to the tantalizing tone in which Saint-Marc uttered the word bibliophile (collector of best editions) , Sacy would reply with humorous gaiety, “You are only a bouquiniste” (old-book dealer) .{28}
While these figures float and vanish, between the lines of the bibliomaniac appears the figure of a philosophic bouquineur, who comes closer to us, and who has often been seen by the frequenters of the quays. It is Xavier Marmier. ”

“ Nodier and Sacy give them the incorrect title of{26} bouquiniste (dealer in old books) , when their knowledge as Academicians should have made them use the word bouquineur (old-book hunter) in order to avoid confusion. To their ears bouquiniste evidently had a pleasing sound. How Sacy despised the collector of dirty, damaged books, which were fit only to be sent to a book-hospital, supposing such a place to exist!
“I know him!” cried Sacy in a rage,—“this amateur who buys books for three or five cents, or in a moment of folly even paying as much as six cents. ”

“ Has he not said in one of those confidences in which lies the charm of his criticisms, “If I become blind I think I shall still take pleasure in holding a beautiful book in my hand. I shall at least feel the softness of its binding, and imagine that I can see it: I have seen so many!”
“O my beloved books,” he wrote in connection with the dispersion of a library, “some day you will also be exhibited in an auction-room, when you will pass into{23} other hands, owners perhaps less worthy of you than your present master. ”

“ But yet I like this cannibal, and I shall be a chapter in his book, but I shall not see him again!”
“Look,” he continued, “there is Crozet’s store with the green walls. He is the most agreeable of our young booksellers, the man of all Paris who can best{52} distinguish between a binding by Derome the elder and Derome the younger, and the last hope of a passing generation of amateurs, if the cult of old books should return in the midst of our barbarity. ”

“ A third of a line!”
“Do you think that this is serious?” the nurse asked me.{66}
“Your question proves, my good woman, that you have not read the ‘Journal des Sciences Médicales.’ Why do you delay in getting a priest?”
Happily at that minute the curé came in to converse, as was his custom, about the thousand and one literary and bibliographical trifles from which his breviary had not wholly distracted him; but he forgot them all when he felt Theodore’s pulse.
“Alas! my child,” he said, “the life of man is only a journey, and even the world itself is not set upon everlasting foundations. ”

“ Avarice, either in the Latin sense of the word or in its more modern meaning, is the agony of a man who is made to trem{19}ble by every trifle when he contemplates his possessions. Some of these bibliomaniacs are like very rich people, of whom it is said, “They leave a great fortune.” ”

“ This gave him a joyous surprise at every moment, and Boulard, having thus delightfully reviewed all his past life, went to sleep forever, over a book, in 1825.
The remembrance of his death doubt{16}less inspired Nodier with the half-sad, half-amusing ending of his Bibliomaniac. Boulard was the type of bibliomaniac whose progressive malady would be the most interesting to study. What was Nodier’s object, then, in searching here and there for materials with which to sketch an imaginary figure, when the notary was at hand? Nodier always followed the plan of taking his imagination as a guide ”

“ The “Trinitate” of Servetus: a small octavo, printed in 1531. A copy was sold as indicated. See Brunet’s “Manuel du Libraire.”
[12] “Bibliothèque Curieuse, ou catalogue raisonné de livres difficiles à trouver. Par David Clement. Göttingen, 1750-1760.” Nine volumes, 4to. Many of the books described in this catalogue, which was carried only to the letter H, have yet to be found; in fact, it is largely conceded that they do not—perhaps never did—exist.
[13] The Giunta edition of Boccaccio, printed at Firenze, 1527, is esteemed the best edition of this famous book. ”