“Good, amiable Nodier,” are the words by which the world, apart from scholars, characterizes Charles Nodier. He is portrayed with a flowered vest, and a frock-coat with great lapels, finished by one of those collars which, by an easy play upon words, are called les cols (l’école) des vieillards. Nodier’s collar, which turned up slightly at the points in a Prudhommesque manner, touched the corners of his refined, kindly mouth; but it is difficult immediately to associate the remembrance of certain books with this 1835 face, for time obliterates everything.
If Nodier belonged by right of his first literary impressions to the classical school, his liberal spirit soon identified itself with that of the romanticists. His face, full of genial originality, bore the characteristics of a man living between two literary epochs; but history little by little soon effaced all these tints and shades. Nodier was also one of those improvisators who talked their books. Contemporaries, in reading them, seemed to hear him speak, and a little imagination added to the surprises of these written conversations; but when the voice ceases the charm vanishes.
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 veritable 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. If we read his reminiscences and studies of his own time in a credulous spirit, we shall constantly say, “Nodier is mistaken; what he tells us is not only wholly improbable but impossible, and is completely at variance with history”—until the wise reader decides that Nodier’s entire writings should bear the title of one of his books, “Contes et Fantaisies.”
Perhaps it would be interesting to separate the true from the false in these works of Nodier, and to show how the thread of truth disappears under his embroidery. In confining the investigation to this little book, “The Bibliomaniac,” taken from “Les Contes de la Veillée,”[1] and rejuvenated by the illustrations of Maurice Leloir, one may have the pleasure of bringing to light, by the aid of letters and comparisons, the best and most absorbing passion that controlled Nodier. Is it not a summary of his passion, from the first lines? If he left the Arsenal Library, where he had been appointed librarian at the end of the year 1823 by a bibliographical minister, M. de Corbière, it was to stroll among the old book-dealers. If he wrote to the friend of his childhood, who became his lifelong confidant, his fellow-countryman of Franche-Comté, Charles Weiss, it was a litany of bibliographical enthusiasm. Small as his means were, Nodier had the incurable mania of book-buying. The noun and the adjective are his own words. But, he said one day, this craze is no more vain in its final results than any other of the illusions of life. Also, in perusing the sayings of the hero of this story, Theodore, we feel that Nodier sympathizes with him from the bottom of his heart. Theodore sometimes resembles him like a brother, and we cannot help regretting that Nodier could not wholly make up his mind to amuse himself fully at his own expense, or to take from real life a man he knew very well, rather than treat him incidentally.
This original and true bibliomaniac, for Nodier’s Theodore is merely a degenerate bibliophile, was celebrated at the time of the Restoration. He was a lawyer named Boulard, who, instead of admiring an imposing row of books in his cabinet, like his fellows, only took pleasure in arranging them on the shelves, or in piling them up in his closets. His library was scattered everywhere in this strange study, which overflowed with cheap literature from auction sales. Finally, there was such an invasion of books that Boulard, becoming the owner of the house in which he lived, expelled all his tenants in turn, and took possession himself of floor after floor for the storage of his books. After this he bought six other houses which he turned into depositories for books. One day, when Nodier asked him for a certain book, Boulard, going from one house to another, struck the stacks, the walls, the ramparts, of books with his cane, saying in triumphant irony, “It is either here or there.” Boulard, growing ill, and no longer able to go out, had the books brought to his bed. He handled them, asked their price, and held them up with admiring affection. As his memory became more and more impaired, he would buy the same book three or four times over. His family, worried at his growing mania, and not desiring to oppose the fervor of his wishes, which were turning violently to certain fixed ideas, conceived the plan of showing him a great part of his own books, which he no longer recognized, as if they were new acquisitions. 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 doubtless 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; but imagination has also its moods and caprices, and it is a mistake for an author to be so fanciful that he ceases to follow the simple and fertile lead of nature.
Nodier could have chosen still another original, the Dutch baron Westreeven van Tiellandt. This extraordinary person kept his library under triple lock for forty years. One day, however, in an access of good feeling, he said to two of his best friends: “You have often expressed a desire to see my books. I want to oblige you both, but you must submit to certain conditions: before entering my library you must each put on a dressing-gown which I have expressly prepared, because your clothes might be saturated with a smell which is bad for books; and you must wear the slippers that I have provided, because your shoes might be full of dangerous dust.” The baron, however, invariably found an excuse for postponing the visit to his library, and died without having kept his promise. As the baron survived Nodier some years, this last feature could not have been portrayed with its attendant moral. The “Bulletin du Bibliophile,” which owed its existence in part to Nodier, took upon itself the baron’s funeral oration and reproduced his will. In leaving his library to the city of The Hague, the baron stipulated that it should be open only on the first and third Thursdays of each month, and only to people who had been provided the preceding day with cards of admission. “Never,” he said, “under any pretext, shall the books or manuscripts be taken outside the reading-room.” No further purchases were to be made, except to complete the collections which he had himself begun—he whose restless and jealous spirit wished to hover around his books.
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 tremble 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.” The verb “to leave” has here rather an ironical meaning. It is as much as saying that they have amassed wealth without having been themselves the gainers thereby.
The book-collector belongs to a race of refined egotists. He knows and tastes the subtle, intense joy which comes from the sight and possession of a fine book. Even before opening it, he handles it caressingly, touching its pages lightly as he would the wings of a butterfly.
In order not to stray too far from the pictures of other days which Nodier evoked, let us look at the charming type of a book-collector who was worthy of the name: Silvestre de Sacy. During the eighteen years of the reign of Louis Philippe, Sacy might have been seen lounging along the quays, on his way to the Palais Bourbon, where he followed the parliamentary debates in his journalistic vocation, carrying almost always a selection of Madame de Sévigné’s letters in his hand. When he returned home it was to take Montaigne, Bossuet, or some other classic, clothed in bindings worthy of them, from a shelf close at hand. By this daily reading he added to his mixture of Christianity and philosophy; but as he cared only for the best editions, he was afraid of rich men, and regarded them as the absorbers of fine books. Multi vocati, pauci lecti,—many are called, but few read,—was what D’Argenson had already proposed as an inscription for the library of a fermier général. [2] Sacy, when he dreamed, on the eve of a book sale, of this or that volume which he coveted, and which he feared he might not be able to hold successfully against the fancy or caprice of some financier, would have palpitation of the heart. Prévost-Paradol wrote of him: “This Christian, whom some would like to call austere, if the word austerity could cover so much forbearance and perfect gentleness, became a sort of epicure in all that concerned his reading.”
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 benevolent, 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. Even though his eyes suffered severely from fatigue, it did not discourage his ardent affection for his books. 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 other hands, owners perhaps less worthy of you than your present master. Yet these books that I have selected, one by one, are truly mine, collected by the sweat of my brow; and I love them so, that it seems to me they have become a part of my very soul by such a long and precious intercourse.”
There speaks the bibliophile, who loves books as they ought to be loved, who lives with them, asks their advice, and cherishes and protects them against their numerous enemies. An English typographer [3] thus enumerates the enemies of books: “Fire, water, gas, heat, dust, neglect, ignorance, rats, mice, and finally bookbinders,”—adding the last with the sudden anger of a man who has suffered by having some fine book hopelessly cut down. He might have mentioned an enemy still more dangerous, the most difficult of all to vanquish—an enemy of every day and hour, ever present, and ready alike for open warfare or for subterfuge: woman.
With a few rare and conspicuous exceptions, women are anti-bibliophiles or book-haters. A book in their eyes is merely a newspaper: they crease and crumple it as they turn its leaves. Lacking a paper-knife to cut the edges, they use a card, a pin, or even a hair-pin. If a rare book is under discussion, they appear more interested in the smallest trifle than in all the first editions that exist. They prefer a scrap of ribbon to the most exquisite binding. If you take from its shrine a miniature volume, unique enough to make a book-lover turn pale with delight, do not trust it to a woman, for in opening it she will split its back. The best of husbands may give the key of his safe to his wife, but he must not give her, even for one moment, the key of his library. A woman should never be left alone with a book, and such in fact should be the rule with all married book-lovers.
Nodier said that, after woman, books are the most delightful things in the world. Why do not women comprehend this, and increase their influence by their appreciation of books?
Following the bibliomaniac who hoards, and the bibliophile who collects, according to the very correct terms of Nodier, come the amateurs of the old book-cult. Nodier and Sacy give them the incorrect title of 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. In other things he is a man of wit and taste, a polite man and a good companion, whose only depravity is concerning books.”
If you have the curiosity to learn the identity of this charming man with the single unpardonable fault, it can be found in a little book of memoirs by Étienne Delécluze, an editor of the “Journal des Débats.” He says that nothing was more amusing than the quarrels which arose between Sacy and Saint-Marc Girardin on the subject of books—the one being unable to find either text or binding of sufficient beauty to express the admiration inspired by the writings of Cicero and Molière, Fénelon and Montaigne; the other careless about the exterior condition of a book, but eager to know its contents. 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).
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. He walked from box to box with short steps, his only journeys then being among the trays of the book-dealers—this man who in former times had been such a great traveller. A little broken by his eighty years, and his lower lip drooping, his expression at the same time was kindly and intelligent, bearing the marks both of easy skepticism and extreme good will. He would turn the books over, ask the price, and slip two or three volumes into the deep pockets of his blue coat.
One day he said to me, with an air of triumph, “I have just bought the first edition of one of my own books. This fact of its being the first edition, however, does not add much to the value of the book; but these ‘Lettres sur le Nord’ have shivered so long in the box, and have spent so many weeks in the same place, that I took pity on them.”
Then Marmier told me with provincial gaiety that the seller—a gamin who, strangely enough, did not know him—had asked him two francs for the copy.
“Two francs!” exclaimed Marmier.
“Yes, sir; that is what it is worth. It is by Marmier.”
“Hum! hum! I know that it is by Marmier, but that does not make it worth two francs.”
“But, sir, he is an Academician.”
“]Are you sure of that?”
“Yes, sir; it says so on the cover.”
“But has he not been dead a long time?”
“That I do not know, but it is possible that he has.”
“See here,” said Marmier, “dead or alive he is not worth more than thirty sous.”
“Well, then, you may have it.”
And Marmier, very happy, took the book, intending to give it to some old friend, “who perhaps will not sell it before to-morrow,” he said.
Dear, good man, who from searching in many boxes had found true wisdom—not to be deceived, and to be lenient. “Ah! book-hunting is the best passion that I can wish you,” he said, the last time that I saw him, when he was weak, and walked with difficulty, but looked calmly into the face of death.
Bouquinistes, bibliophiles, and bibliomaniacs all live happily because of this passion, and bless it. Charles Nodier knew its delightful anxieties so well that, a few hours before he died, his last thought—so his daughter Madame Mennessier-Nodier writes, in the book that she has affectionately consecrated to him—was to dictate an account of a few trifling debts that he owed his binders and the booksellers.
R. Vallery-Radot.
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