The public library at Tours, which is now on the quay facing the Loire, and not at the place, as indicated by the guide-books, where the Mairie stands, has a remarkably interesting collection of manuscripts. Two of the finest of them are undoubtedly of Charlemagne’s time. One of these, Tours No. 22 (St. Martin No. 247) is a beautiful Book of the Gospels, written all in gold on very white parchment, in remarkably perfect condition. The gold employed must have been singularly pure. There are 277 leaves each with double columns of 25 lines, and in all 289 leaves; the size is 12⅖ by 9⅕ inches. The initial letters are quite simple, and in exceedingly good taste. The other, Tours No. 23 (St. Martin No. 174), is also a Book of the Gospels, with 193 leaves, 11⅗ by 9⅕ inches. It has so-called Hibernian initial letters, purple, with interlacements, and birds’ heads with the characteristic eyes and beaks. It is much more probably Anglian than Hibernian, and we may attribute it to the scriptorium of the school of York, or to that of St. Martin of Tours as a copy from a York manuscript. The present librarian assigns it to the writing school of Marmoutier, across the Loire, which he thinks was the chief writing school of Tours in Alcuin’s time. That opinion is founded on a remark in connexion with the first establishment of Marmoutier, to which reference will be made below;[204] the English student may well attribute the MS. to St. Martin’s itself, produced, as a copy, under Alcuin’s own eye, especially as it has always appeared in the catalogue of St. Martin’s and not in that of Marmoutier, and is now classed as a St. Martin’s MS. The _Evangeliarium_ first mentioned, in gold letters on white parchment, is a book of historic fame. It is the book on which the kings of France down to Louis XIV, in 1650, took their oath of fidelity and protection to St. Martin of Tours, when admitted as abbat and first canon of the collegiate church. The book was bound with great magnificence of gold and gems; and when the Huguenots, under the Prince of Condé, sacked the place, they carried off the rich binding, but fortunately left the manuscript itself quite uninjured. The oath of the kings is written on the reverse of folio 277, in a style closely copied from the manuscript itself, probably in the eleventh or twelfth century, all in small gold capital letters, with a point after every word. The entry runs as follows;— Hoc est iuramentum regis Francie quod facere tenetur dum primo recipitur in abbatem et canonicum huius ecclesie beati Martini Turonensis.