The Archbishop Juvenal des Ursins died in the middle of the fifteenth
century. He is celebrated as a lover of good books, though only a single
example of his choice survived into the present generation. It was a
magnificent missal on vellum, filled with the choicest miniatures, and
known as the best specimen of its class in the possession of Prince
Soltikoff. It is only a few years ago that it entered the collection of
M. Firmin-Didot, who paid 36,000 francs for it at the Prince's sale: in
the year 1861 he gave it up to the City of Paris; but like so many of the
great books of France it perished in the fires of the Commune.
Jacques de Pars, the physician to Charles VII., bequeathed his scientific
MSS. to the College of Medicine at Paris: and the value of his gift was
manifested when the powerful Louis XI. was forbidden to take out a
medical treatise for transcription unless he would pledge his silver
plate and find collateral security for its safe return. Etienne Chevalier
was one of the few servants of King Charles who were tolerated by King
Louis. He became Chief Treasurer to Louis XI., and built a great mansion
in the Rue de la Verrerie in Paris. The walls and ceilings were decorated
with allegorical designs in honour of his friend Agnes Sorel, whose
courage had led to the expulsion of the English invaders. The library was
filled with choice MSS., illuminated for the most part by Jehan Foucquet,
the famous miniaturist from Tours. Nicholas Chevalier, his descendant in
the sixteenth century, was also illustrious as a bibliophile, and amidst
his own printed folios and pedigrees rolled in blue velvet could still
show the marvellous _Livre d'Heures_, of which all that now remains is a
set of paintings hacked out from the text.
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