Diane de Poitiers, a true _chasseresse des bouquins_, was herself the
daughter of a bibliophile. The Comte de St. Vallier loved books in
Italian bindings, and there is a _Roman de Perceforest_ in the collection
of the Duc d'Aumale, that bears the Saint Vallier arms and marks of
ownership, though it was confidently believed to have been bound for
Grolier when it belonged to King Louis-Philippe. Henri Deux and the
Duchesse Diane kept a treasure of books between them in the magnificent
castle of Anet: and after they were dead the books remained unknown and
unnoticed in their hall until the death of the Princesse de Conde in the
year 1723. The sale which then took place was a revelation of beauty. The
books were in good condition, and were all clad in sumptuous bindings.
There was a remarkable diversity in their contents, the Fathers and the
poets standing side by side with treatises upon medicine and the
management of a household, as if they had been acquired in great part by
virtue of the tax upon the publishers. Most of them, we are told, were
bought by the 'intrepid book-hunter' M. Guyon de Sardieres, whose whole
library in its turn was engulphed in the miscellaneous collections of the
Duc de la Valliere. An article in the _Bibliophile Francais_ contains a
curious argument in favour of Diane de Poitiers, as being one of a band
of devoted Frenchwomen who saved their country from foreign ideas. We are
reminded of the patriotism of Agnes Sorel, and of the excellent influence
of Gabrielle d'Estrees.
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