Part 11 (1/2)
He had learnt nothing and forgotten nothing during his exile, and notwithstanding the strong advice of the Powers who had set him up in business as a monarch, he encouraged a steady reaction against the improvements that had been so liberally encouraged in the State by Napoleon and his ministers.
The French nation had but little loyalty or affection for this gouty, gluttonous, fat old man, but they ridiculed him, and bore with him, till his death in 1824.
His brother, the Comte d'Artois, who succeeded him as Charles X., a narrow-minded, obstinate, and priest-ridden man, persevered in the same course as Louis XVIII., and was even more unpopular.
Under these two Bourbons, who strove hard to undo all the reforms that the Revolution had effected, those of the old n.o.bility who had survived the Terror and the Wars were encouraged to return to France, and once again the refrain was:
”Chapeau bas, chapeau bas!
Gloire au Marquis de Carabas.”
They resumed their ancient t.i.tles, estates, and family arms, but the bulk of the French nation declined to consider them, or their claims, seriously. Both Louis XVIII. and Charles X. created new n.o.bles from amongst their personal and political adherents, but few men of worth or importance were willing thus to be enn.o.bled.
The rules of heraldry devised by Napoleon were annulled, and the old system revived. But though the wealth of the nation had greatly increased during the few years of peace, whilst the taste for literature and the formation of large collections of books had once again come into fas.h.i.+on, the book-plates of this period show no improvement in taste, and no originality in design. They are either overladen with meretricious ornamentation, or simple name labels possessing no artistic interest whatever.
One of the very few plates of the time worth naming is that of the d.u.c.h.esse de Berry for her library at Resny, on which we find the lilies of the French royal family. The d.u.c.h.ess also used a simpler plate similar to a book-binding stamp.
Probably Berryer the famous advocate, had his plate engraved about this time; it is in the Louis XVI. style. (See page 149.)
The pretentious plate of Victor, Duc de Saint Simon Vermandois, Pair de France, Grand d'Espagne, is an example of the want of taste of the Restoration, as is also that of the _Bibliotheque de La Motte_ which is dest.i.tute of grace or finish.
[Ill.u.s.tration: BOOK-PLATE OF THE d.u.c.h.eSSE DE BERRY.]
At length, in July, 1830, the French, weary of the reactionary rule of Charles X. and of his breaches of faith, drove him from the throne, and he sought refuge in England.
His cousin Louis Philippe was elected king of the French, and for eighteen years the country enjoyed comparative peace, and great commercial prosperity.
Then at last was France released from the nightmare pressure of the _ancien regime_, and free to choose a const.i.tutional government suited to her requirements and the progress of modern civilization.
During his reign Louis Philippe created a number of new n.o.bles, the chosen men being for the most part politicians who supported the government in parliament, rich tradesmen, office holders, and a few literary men.
Two of the greatest men of the day, Thiers and Guizot, bluntly refused to be enn.o.bled, as later on did Mons. Rouher. The a.s.sumption of false t.i.tles still continued, whilst the prefix _de_ which had formerly indicated gentle birth or landed estates, came to be so commonly employed as to carry no signification whatever. Book-plates of this period have little to distinguish them from those of the Restoration, except that the seal pattern, or the plain s.h.i.+eld within a belt or garter became more common, whilst some artists affected a revival of a kind of Gothic ornamentation, with the inscription in archaic phraseology.
Of this latter style a beautiful example is the plate designed for himself by the late Mons. Claude E. Thiery, of Maxeville.
It represents the interior of a mediaeval library, the walls of which are decorated with the arms of Lorraine. A reader is seated in front of two open folios, and above the design the inscription is:
”Cestuy livre est a moy Claude Thiery ymaigier de moult haust et puissant Seigneur Mon seigneur Francoy Joseph empereur,” etc.
It is unnecessary to quote the whole of the somewhat lengthy inscription, as prints from the original plate were issued with the ”Archives de la Societe Francaise des Collectionneurs d'Ex Libris,”
January 1895, together with a somewhat indignant letter from its owner pointing out several inaccuracies which had been made in an article describing the plate in ”Ex Libris Ana,” page 73.
The description was certainly curiously inexact, but that these laborious imitations of the crabbed handwriting, the archaic phraseology, and the miniature painting to be found on ancient ma.n.u.scripts are lacking in originality, and out of place on modern book-plates, as says the writer in ”Ex Libris Ana” (and herein lay the sting of his remarks), is a conclusion in which many collectors will certainly agree.
Other well-known plates of this period are those of Aime Leroy, A.
Mercier, Viollet Le-Duc, Gabriel Peignot, Milsan, Ambroise Firmin-Didot, Desbarreaux Bernard, Pixerecourt, and Bazot, Notaire a Amiens. Yet even these present few points of interest, literary or artistic.
Aime Leroy had a Gothic window, through which a student is seen reading.
Motto: _Mes livres sont ma joie_. The plate of Gabriel Peignot was also what we should style a library interior, as was appropriate to its owner who had been for years connected with the libraries of Vesoul and Dijon, and had made bibliography the study of his life which extended to the good old age of eighty-two. He died in 1849.