I cannot conclude this short chapter on distinguished plate-owners better than by giving the Japanesque ex-libris of Octave Uzanne, who has not only produced many charming volumes, the delight of all book-lovers, but is also himself an enthusiastic collector of ex-libris, and a writer of authority on their history. In this plate the exigencies of space have compelled the artist, M. Aglaüs Bouvenne, to so divide the name that it reads as though M. Uzanne were in the act of courteously saluting himself! Well, why not? AVE UZANNE! [Illustration: BOOK-PLATE OF OCTAVE UZANNE, 1882. By Aglaüs Bouvenne.] [Illustration] CHAPTER XVI. MODERN EX-LIBRIS. From the downfall of the first Napoleon, and the restoration of the Monarchy, until about 1850, art, as shown in ex-libris, appears to have slumbered; scarcely anything can be found but a dreary repetition of heraldic plates, without character and without style, or slavish imitations of designs of the pre-Revolution character, such as those of F. des Robert and Du Puy de Belveze (see pages 276, 277). As Poulet-Malassis observes, they appear to have been turned out to pattern indiscriminately by the Parisian engravers. The pattern most in request was a kind of strap, or sword-belt, which surrounded the shield or monogram of the owner. Even in this dreary waste, without art, without originality, there is just one plate which calls for remark. It is that of Alphonse Karr, the author, and represents a wasp (the symbol he chose) busy writing on a long parchment. Probably this was designed for him by Grandville, the caricaturist. This plate almost marks a division line between the old engraved copper-plates with their stiff and formal heraldry, and the modern etched ex-libris, with designs free and graceful,--allegoric, pictorial, allusive, humorous, anything, in fact, that is not heraldic, or in which, at least, if there be anything of an armorial nature, it is made subservient to the general design, and as little conspicuous as possible. [Illustration: BOOK-PLATE OF F. DES ROBERT, 1878.] Some well-known artists of the day having set the fashion, it became “the thing” with literary men--plebeian people, of course--to discard heraldry, and to have ex-libris emblematical of their studies, their tastes, or their principal works, as in the plates, for instance, of Victor Hugo, Théophile Gautier, Manet, the Brothers Goncourt, Octave Uzanne, Paul Lacroix, and others. [Illustration: BOOK-PLATE OF G. DU PUY DE BELVEZE.] Apart from what may be termed the original and characteristic book-plates of some of the leading men in arts and letters, French ex-libris of the first fifty years of this century may be divided into three leading styles: 1. The plain armorial shield, or seal, with heraldic bearings. 2. The plain printed label, either in modern type, or in imitation of that of the fifteenth century. 3. Type-printed, surrounded by a wreath of flowers, a belt, or a strap.