[Illustration: BOOK-PLATE OF LOUIS MOHR.] All, or nearly all, come under these headings, and are about as artistic as the label on a bottle of champagne, or a box of bonbons. They accomplish their object, for they proclaim the ownership of the volume, but tell us nothing of the owner’s personality. [Illustration: BOOK-PLATE OF LEON GRUEL.] A new fashion which arose in ex-libris, almost synchronous with the rise of the Second Empire, dispelled much of this formality and monotony. Individuality and originality were displayed, often weak and puerile, but infinitely superior to the dull uniformity which had prevailed in the previous generation. Statesmen, literary and scientific men, even artists, began to mark their books in this way, and their plates were almost as varied as their tastes and characters. Their designs may not always please, may sometimes even shock, as does that of _Niniche_, but at least they do not weary with their sameness. [Illustration: BOOK-PLATE OF THE COMTE DE BUREY.] But of all the modes in ex-libris there is one, at least, which always pleases, whether French or English, namely, the photographic portrait of the owner carefully reproduced by a cunning engraver, and furnished with bookish surroundings. [Illustration: BOOK-PLATE OF THE COMTE DE BUREY.] This portrait ex-libris has great interest for the collector, but the simple photograph, in all its detestably scientific truth and brutal exactitude, cannot be considered as a respectable or desirable member of the ex-libris family. [Illustration: BOOK-PLATE OF HENRI TAUSIN, OF ST. QUENTIN.] [Illustration: BOOK-PLATE OF J. E. SYLVESTRE. Peintre-Graveur.] Little need be said concerning modern French armorial plates, they are neither numerous nor especially characteristic. Some of the neatest amongst them are signed _Stern_, graveur, Paris, and in their formality and clearness resemble our own modern heraldic work. [Illustration: BOOK-PLATE OF G. MALET.] But it is in the light, graceful plates of to-day that we find the fullest development of French art and originality. They style them _Ex-Libris de Fantaisie_. They illustrate the transient humour of the owner, his caprices, his studies, or his recreations; they obey no rule, they elude analysis or classification, they defy description: “_Their beauties_ are like poppies spread, You seize the flower, its bloom is shed! Or, like the snow-falls in the river, A moment white--then melts for ever.” [Illustration: BOOK-PLATE OF GEORGES MANTIN.]