In arriving at Geneva, after the death of Estienne, Casaubon entered, only for the second time in his life, his father-in-law’s library. “Such a wreck of vast projects! A memorial of stupendous labour!” he exclaimed, on seeing it. We learn from his diary that it was due to his influence that the co-heirs permitted the manuscripts to pass to Paul Estienne, to whom the Greek Press had been bequeathed. The printed books were sold for the benefit of the creditors. Such a termination of the scholarly labours and enormous energy of Estienne was hardly to have been looked for. In the year 1600, at the instance of his friend De Vic, Casaubon journeyed to Paris, where he was hoping to receive from the King some kind of appointment that would secure him an income. He was received for a time as the guest of his wife’s cousin, Henry Estienne. The publishing business of the old House of Estienne was then being carried on in Paris by the Patissons, who had connected themselves with the family by marriage. The position which Casaubon understood from De Vic had been promised by the King was not secured without discouraging delay. He had hoped to be associated in some way with the instruction of Greek in the University, but his Protestant faith proved an insuperable obstacle to any University appointment. In 1601, after he had been kept waiting nearly a year, a royal patent was given to him as keeper of the Royal Library, where he succeeded the mathematician Gosselin. The salary was 1,200 livres, and the duties of the post left to the incumbent a large measure of leisure time. The Paris of that day contained about 400,000 people. Coryat, writing in 1608, says that the Rue S. Jacques was “very full of booksellers that have faire shoppes most plentifully furnished with bookes.” The library in which the scholar from Geneva now found himself installed contained about nine hundred works, a large proportion of which were in manuscript. The collection of Greek manuscripts was said to be second only to that of the Vatican.[39] The new librarian found himself in favour with the King, who visited the library from time to time and made gracious inquiries of the keeper concerning the contents of the books. It was said by Scaliger of Henry IV. that he could not keep his countenance and could not read a book. Moderate as was the salary of the keeper of the King’s books, it was, by not a few of those in authority in a Court where literature was held in such low esteem, considered to be a wasteful and excessive expenditure. “You cost the King too much, Sir,” said Sully to Casaubon; “your pay exceeds that of two good captains, and you are of no use to the country.”[40]