'
De Thou's end was hastened by the death of his wife. Those who know the
look of his books, stamped with a series of his family quarterings, will
remember that he was first married to Marie Barbancon, and afterwards to
Gasparde de la Chastre. 'I had always hoped and prayed,' he wrote at the
commencement of his will, 'that my dearest Gaspara Chastraea would have
outlived me.'
Admonished by her loss to set his affairs in order he began to take
special pains in providing for the future of his books. He anticipated
the public spirit of Cardinal Richelieu, to whom the merit is often
assigned of having been the first to bequeath the use of his library to
scholars. The Cardinal was not particular about the methods by which he
amassed his literary wealth: he is said to have increased his store by
all the arts of cajolery, and even by bare intimidation; and he may have
wished to make some amends by directing that 'persons of erudition'
should have access to his books after his death. De Thou had an equal
love of books, and showed perhaps a kinder feeling about the use of the
treasures which his own care had accumulated. 'It is important,' he
wrote, 'for my own family and for the cause of learning that the library
should be kept together which I have been for more than forty years
collecting, and I hereby forbid any division, sale, or dispersion
thereof; I bequeath it to such of my sons as shall apply themselves to
literature, and they shall hold it in common, but so that it shall be
free to all scholars at home or abroad.
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