During his reign Louis Philippe created a number of new nobles, the
chosen men being for the most part politicians who supported the
government in parliament, rich tradesmen, office holders, and a few
literary men.
Two of the greatest men of the day, Thiers and Guizot, bluntly refused
to be ennobled, as later on did Mons. Rouher. The assumption of false
titles still continued, whilst the prefix _de_ which had formerly
indicated gentle birth or landed estates, came to be so commonly
employed as to carry no signification whatever. Book-plates of this
period have little to distinguish them from those of the Restoration,
except that the seal pattern, or the plain shield within a belt or
garter became more common, whilst some artists affected a revival of a
kind of Gothic ornamentation, with the inscription in archaic
phraseology.
Of this latter style a beautiful example is the plate designed for
himself by the late Mons. Claude E. Thiery, of Maxéville.
It represents the interior of a mediæval library, the walls of which are
decorated with the arms of Lorraine. A reader is seated in front of two
open folios, and above the design the inscription is:
“Cestuy livre est a moy Claude Thiery ymaigier de moult haust et
puissant Seigneur Mon seigneur Françoy Joseph empéreur,” etc.
It is unnecessary to quote the whole of the somewhat lengthy
inscription, as prints from the original plate were issued with the
“Archives de la Société Française des Collectionneurs d’Ex Libris,”
January 1895, together with a somewhat indignant letter from its owner
pointing out several inaccuracies which had been made in an article
describing the plate in “Ex Libris Ana,” page 73.
The description was certainly curiously inexact, but that these
laborious imitations of the crabbed handwriting, the archaic
phraseology, and the miniature painting to be found on ancient
manuscripts are lacking in originality, and out of place on modern
book-plates, as says the writer in “Ex Libris Ana” (and herein lay the
sting of his remarks), is a conclusion in which many collectors will
certainly agree.
Other well-known plates of this period are those of Aimé Leroy, A.
Mercier, Viollet Le-Duc, Gabriel Peignot, Milsan, Ambroise Firmin-Didot,
Desbarreaux Bernard, Pixérecourt, and Bazot, Notaire à Amiens. Yet even
these present few points of interest, literary or artistic.
Aimé Leroy had a Gothic window, through which a student is seen reading.
Motto: _Mes livres sont ma joie_. The plate of Gabriel Peignot was also
what we should style a library interior, as was appropriate to its owner
who had been for years connected with the libraries of Vésoul and Dijon,
and had made bibliography the study of his life which extended to the
good old age of eighty-two. He died in 1849.
Bazot, Notaire Amiens, had an imitation of the old style of armorial
plate, with a ribbon on which the dates 1548 and 1848 appear. There is
no explanation known of the first date, 1548.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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