[Illustration: BOOK-PLATE OF JACOB HOUBLON, ESQ.] Samuel Pepys in his diary mentions that the five brothers Houblon came to supper at his house on May 15, 1666. They were rich merchants, one of them later on coming to be Lord Mayor of London, and the first Governor of the Bank of England. According to an epitaph in the church of St. Mary Woolnoth, in London, their ancestor was one Peter Houblon, who came over from Flanders. The late Lord Palmerston was descended from a Sir John Houblon, who was Lord Mayor of London in 1695. [Illustration: BOOK-PLATE OF JOHN VIGNOLES.] As recently as 1894 the death of a descendant of the family was announced, that of Mr. Richard Archer Houblon, J.P., of Cambridgeshire, aged eighty-five years, whose estate was valued at over £50,000, whilst but a short time since a Colonel Archer Houblon was in command of a battalion of the Royal Berkshire Regiment. Of somewhat similar origin, but from the grapevine, come the arms of the Vignoles family, a branch of which, long settled in England, produced the well-known civil engineer. [Illustration: BOOK-PLATE OF J. L. ROBILLARD.] On a shield borne by _Robillard_ are two billiard cues in saltire between four billiard balls. For M. Champfleury, the artist, Aglaüs Bouvenne has drawn a flowery field (a _champ fleurie_), and for the Comtesse de Noé a Noah’s ark, whilst Paul Cordier plays on his own name in a charming little vignette representing a rope-maker (_cordier_) at work in his rope-walk. [Illustration: BOOK-PLATE OF PAUL CORDIER.] A plate composed and engraved by Evart Van Mayders for Mons. F. Raisin, has a fox vainly climbing over a book to reach some grapes (_raisins_), and exclaiming, in disgust, “They are too green.” Although the late M. Eugene Rimmel lived many years in England, and wrote a charming “History of Perfumes” in our language, he was a thoroughly patriotic Frenchman. His countrymen ever found a friend in him, and his exertions on behalf of their sick and wounded during the terrible war of 1870-71 should keep his memory for ever fresh. His book-plate is a quaint little medley of the useful and the ornamental; the distilling apparatus, and a fountain of perfume, surmounted by a crest of rose-buds, suffice to indicate the scent, but not the descent, of Eugene Rimmel. M. Milsand, of Dijon, used a book-plate containing an imitation of a bank-note, having on it the figures 1000 and 100 (_mille cent_), whilst Charles Monselet has a pretty little sketch, by Devambez, of a corner of his library with some books heaped up (_Livres amoncelés_). The plate of M. Wolf explains itself better in English than in French. “_Quærens quem devoret_” (see page 229). [Illustration: BOOK-PLATE OF EUGENE RIMMEL.]