HEREIN an attempt has been made to gather in such French phrases of book possession, and inscriptions on book-plates, as may be deemed interesting, quaint, or humorous, avoiding in this instance all mottoes or war cries which are obviously of heraldic origin.

Little Victor Dupuis is very like Master Tommy Smith in the habit he has of scribbling nonsense verses in his school books; one very popular quatrain in the good old days of the French monarchy was:

Or, he would threaten borrowers with dire penalties:

Becoming more ambitious, he would launch out into a Macaronic verse:

Or, another way, as the cookery books say:

Or, in Alsatian German:

Or, he would descend into trivial details, thus:

Finally, arrived at a mature age, he would order a book-plate, inscribing on it an expression of his love for literature in some such manner as did M. Leonis SchÜck, upon his ex-libris designed by Hirsch:

Others have expressed their sentiments in moral platitudes:

But one of the most useful axioms is that borrowed from “Menagiana” vol. iv.: “La premiÈre chose qu’on doit faire quand on À empruntÉ un livre, c’est de le lire afin de pouvoir le rendre plutot.” Hugo de Bassville employed this, with the addition of “Rendez le livre s’il vous plait,” whilst such ardent book-lovers as David Garrick and George Augustus Sala have placed it on their book-plates; it figures also with perfect propriety on the fine ex-libris of the “BibliothÈque de la Providence” (the French Protestant Hospital at Victoria Park), and on those of Frederick Le Mesurier, and John Meybohm.

Following these come a long list of verses directed against book borrowers in general, commencing with the verse attributed to Guilbert de PixÉrÉcourt, although he does not use it on his book-plate:

The two epigrams below were written by Guillaume Colletet, and have been quoted on several ex-libris, though curiously enough their author did not use one, but was content to sign his name in his books, which were numerous:

“Aux Emprunteurs de Livres qui ne les rendent point.

Both these verses were first published in the “Epigrammes du Sieur Guillaume Colletet.” Paris, 1653.

Charles FrÉdÉric Hommeau, whose ex-libris represents the interior of his library, gives notice to borrowers that they must return his book in fourteen days and in good condition. In order that there may be no mistake as to his meaning, he has the rule engraved at the foot of his plate:

Indeed he loved not borrowers, for he adds, “Ite ad vendentes, et emite vobis!”

M. Auguste Stoeber, author of the “Petite Revue d’Ex-Libris Alsaciens,” used the following lines for the German books in his library:

The late Rev. Mr. Carson possessed a handsome book-plate designed for M. Abel Lemercier, which is one of the largest modern French plates, measuring, as it does, 8½ inches by 5½ inches.

It is especially remarkable on account of the number of mottoes it contains, commencing at the top with “Le gaing de nostre science, c’est en estre devenu meilleur et plus sage,” followed by four or five other maxims, which have been already quoted.

This plate is not dated, but it is signed M. Potemont inv., R. Martial sc. It combines some of the characteristics of a “library interior” with those of a “book-pile,” and is altogether a sumptuous and imposing, though somewhat cumbersome design.

On a singular old library interior plate, headed “Du Cabinet LittÉraire de P. Cellier, Libraire, quai St. Antoine, À Lyon,” were found the following instructions to book borrowers:

A Frenchman resident in this country, early in the century, had a roughly printed label, in which the inscription was surrounded by a small woodcut border. The inscription is curious for its errors; it runs thus: “J. Admans, son livre, mil huit sens seize. Rue de Palais. Cantorbery.”

M. Gouache, whose plate informs us that he resided at number 13 in the Boulevard de la Madeleine, quotes the following:

The French are not particularly rich in mottoes in praise of books. Adolphe Borgnet, of LiÈge, quotes Montaigne, thus:

On a nameless pictorial plate (signed F. Groskost, Strasbourg) occur some lines attributed to M. Jacques Flach (see page 243):

says a nameless moralist, who probably had not read Lord Macaulay’s account of William III., whilst

says the historian Chevillard.

On the plate of M. Jules, Baron de St. Genois, is the motto:

The following cynical epigram,

was placed on his book-plate by the philosophical atheist Sylvain MarÉchal, who wrote a work entitled “Fragmens d’un poeme moral sur Dieu,” dated 1781.

David KÖning remarks:

Whilst Patrice Salin fairly gives himself away:

Others have used mottoes which come under no special category, such as that on an engraved label bearing the name J. G. Lafont:

In 1791 Monsieur J. B. Michaud cried aloud on his book-plate for “La LibertÉ ou la Mort” and many others adopted the phrase, at a time when Death was certainly more en Évidence than Liberty.

Poor LÉon Gambetta, probably the most daring and original of modern French politicians, had his book-plate inscribed “Vouloir c’est Pouvoir,” an axiom which he, the son of a poor provincial grocer, had proved correct up to a certain point.

There is no article in the “Dictionnaire des Girouettes” more laughable than that devoted to Monsieur Nicholas FranÇois de Neufchateau, who, not content with being a political turncoat of the first order, celebrated each of his changes of faith by songs in honour of his new ideal of government. These poems, here side by side in the dictionary, proclaim the man at once a venal weathercock and a conceited prig.

He was born in 1752; before the outbreak of the Revolution he was a lawyer in Paris; afterwards he became President of the National Assembly, when he called King Louis XVI. a traitor, yet this did not prevent his being sent to prison by BarrÈre in 1793. On his release he wrote a poem in honour of BarrÈre; later on he joined with the senate in advising Napoleon to create himself emperor. The emperor could do no less in return than create Neufchateau a Count of the Empire. What became of him on the Restoration does not appear, except that in 1815 he obtained permission to dedicate a volume of his fables to the king.

To the end of time the ex-libris of Monsieur N. FranÇois de Neufchateau will not only pompously proclaim all the titles given to him by Napoleon I., but describe in verse the blazon of his arms, in which, as he says, the useful and the ornamental are curiously blended, the whole being surmounted by one of David’s toques, with the five waving ostrich feathers denoting senatorial rank.

Yet this was the man who had previously written:

M. de Neufchateau was a busy man and a versatile, writing on politics, social economy, history, and agriculture in turns, but it is as a poet that he will be known to posterity through his book-plate, which collectors will ever prize as a monument of egregious vanity.

M. FranÇois de Neufchateau died in 1828.

There is a chapter in “Ex-Libris Ana” (Paris, L. Joly) devoted to manuscript inscriptions of ownership in books; one is given, as having been commonly written in his books, by an author named CollÉ:

Contrasting with this schoolboy rhyme is the sad farewell to her children, written by Marie Antoinette in her prayer-book only a few hours before she went to the scaffold:

Scarcely does the world contain a more pathetic document.