Among the interesting plates of French celebrities that of Leon Gambetta should be mentioned. This design represents the dawn, chanticleer crowing with might and main in one corner, while above is the gallant motto, Vouloir cest Pouvoir. This was designed and engraved by M. Alphonse Legros about the year 1874, when he was in Paris upon the commission of Sir Charles Dilke to secure a portrait of Gambetta, and the suggestion is supposed to have come from M. Poulet-Malassis. The curious thing about the plate is that M. Gambetta himself asserted that he never used it in a book ! Proofs of the plate are known in four states and all very rare, while the original copper itself is now in the possession of the President of the Societe Francaise des Collectionneurs d'Ex Libris in Paris. It is hardly to be expected that M. Gambetta had many books or had much leisure in which to enjoy them. The instincts of the bibliophile are not to be credited to him.
Curious and interesting in a very similar way is the plate of M. Victor Hugo, in which the towers of the cathedral of Notre Dame are seen in the blackness, relieved by a jagged flash of lightning which passes before them and upon which is the name of the owner of the plate. A monogram is also given upon the front of the building. This design came from the mind of M. Aglaus Bouvenne and was drawn in 1870.
There is in the possession of a French collector an original letter from M. Hugo to M. Bouvenne in which he thanks him for the plate, with which he expresses himself as charmed, and adds, "Votre ex libris marquera tous les livres de la Bibliotheque a Hautville House." The letter is dated from naurville House, 10 Juillet, '70. The events which occurred shortly after this letter was written are well remembered, and in the troubles of the years that followed may probably be found an explanation of the fact that the plate was little used in the few books (less than threescore) of which the noted novelist and historian died possessed.
M. Bouvenne was also the designer of the plate of M. Theophile Gautier, who was not only a novelist and dramatist, but a lover of books and who had a library of considerable worth, which was sold after his death at the Hotel Druout. For some reason these books containing the plate of this widely known litterateur brought but a small sum. Prosper-Merimee, distinguished as a novelist, used a book-plate of very diminutive proportions, which was designed by no less a hand than that of Viollet-le-Duc.
Paul Lacroix, eminent as a bibliographer, novelist, and historian of the arts, sciences, and literature of the Middle Ages, used a very simple plate to denote his ownership of a book. A little over one inch wide by a little less than two long, it contained a picture of a pile of books with nude children about, an inkstand, lamp, etc. On the pages of an open book were the initials and nom-de-plume of the famous librarian, P. L. Jacob Bibliophile. The suitable motto read, Livres vielz et antiques Livres nouveaux Etienne Dolet.
Devambez designed a very pleasing plate for Charles Monselet, in which a corner of the latter's library is revealed: a curtain drawn back holds the owner's name, richly bound books lie upon the floor, — it is assumed for the purpose of showing their handsome sides and not as an indication of the usual appearance of the room, — and rolls of manuscript are gathered under a handsome table.
The Vicomtesse de Bonnemains, whose influence over the late General Boulanger is said to have been the means of preventing the establishment of the Comte de Paris on the throne of his ancestors, uses a book-plate of the usual modern French armorial character. Crowned lions support the shields accolle, and a coronet is placed above, the design being enclosed within a circle and its background being bespattered with the devices of Diane de Poitiers, so well known upon her book-bindings.
The book-plate of modern France is characterized by a certain quality of lightness and gracefulness which, while pretty in its way, does not hide the fact that it is rather meaningless and empty. Mere ornament, however delicate and fanciful, hardly serves as a satisfactory book-plate. It may be clever as a piece of designing, but as the mark of ownership in so important and solid a thing as a good book it is not in keeping. There are quantities of these to be seen in the collectors' albums, in which very graceful cupids and very prettily disposed books are over and again the hackneyed features, but they do not make the sensible and pleasing book-plate which the more purposeful designs of the English and American engravers do. Exceptions there are, of course, to this rule and among them is an exceedingly tasteful plate for Madame L. B., which shows this woman bibliophile in her library enjoying some favorite volume: this is a portrait plate, and is one of the most satisfactory that I have ever seen. The reader sits near her well-filled shelves, which are seen through the glass door of the cabinet, and with an air of unconscious absorption reads from the good-sized book held upon the arm. The design is simple and pleasing, the etching remarkably good, so that in this plate one feels that the modern French book-lover may find a model and an inspiration that may lead him to draw designs which shall be at once pretty in a good sense while effective and adapted to its purpose.



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