A Frenchman resident in this country, early in the century, had a
roughly printed label, in which the inscription was surrounded by a
small woodcut border. The inscription is curious for its errors; it runs
thus: “J. Admans, son livre, mil huit sens seize. Rue de Palais.
Cantorbery.”
M. Gouache, whose plate informs us that he resided at number 13 in the
Boulevard de la Madeleine, quotes the following:
“STANCE.
Le paresseux s’endort dans les bras de la faim,
Le laboureur conduit sa fertile charrue,
Le savant pense et lit, le guerrier frappe et tue,
Le mendiant s’assied sur le bord du chemin:
Où vont-ils cependant? Ils vont où va la feuille
Que chasse devant lui le souffle des hivers!
Ainsi vont se flétrir, dans leurs travaux divers,
Ces générations que le temps sème et cueille.
LAMARTINE, _Méditations_.
GOUACHE, Boulevard de la Madeleine, 13.”
The French are not particularly rich in mottoes in praise of books.
Adolphe Borgnet, of Liège, quotes Montaigne, thus:
“Les Historiens sont le vray gibbier de mon estude.”
On a nameless pictorial plate (signed F. Groskost, Strasbourg) occur
some lines attributed to M. Jacques Flach (see page 243):
“A MES LIVRES.
Plaisants, je vous aime
Sérieux aussi,
Frivoles de même
Pédants--merci!”
“Un livre est un ami qui ne trompe jamais” (on page 240)
says a nameless moralist, who probably had not read Lord Macaulay’s
account of William III., whilst
“Je rapporte fidèlement ce que je découvre,”
says the historian Chevillard.
[Illustration: BOOK-PLATE OF L. DELATRE.]
On the plate of M. Jules, Baron de St. Genois, is the motto:
“Bon livre d’ennui delivre.”
The following cynical epigram,
“L’homme a dit: ‘Faisons Dieu, qu’il soit à notre image.’
Dieu fut! et l’ouvrier adora son image,”
was placed on his book-plate by the philosophical atheist Sylvain
Maréchal, who wrote a work entitled “Fragmens d’un poeme moral sur
Dieu,” dated 1781.
David Köning remarks:
“L’Art c’est la vie.
La Nature c’est la mort.”
Whilst Patrice Salin fairly gives himself away:
“Tel que je suis, prends moi.”
Others have used mottoes which come under no special category, such as
that on an engraved label bearing the name _J. G. Lafont_:
“Des plaisirs sans apprêts, des amis peu nombreux
Les livres, les beaux arts, et la philosophie
Voila le vrai bonheur, il suffit a mes voeux.”
“Tots besoingners tots escripre.”
_Valentin Mourie._ (See page 238.)
“Point de Roses sans épignes.”
_Edward S. Potter._
“Honneur à qui rapporte.”
_L. Delatre._ (See page 240.)
“La mort n’y mord.”
Ex-Libris _Fr. Serrier_. (See page 242.)
“Vive la Joie.”
On the plate of _M. Joy_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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