“They are signed,” went on M. Lerond, “and I think I can decipher the name of Sebastian Leclerc.” “Maybe,” answered M. de Brécé. These priceless shelves contained, as M. Lerond remarked, books by Tillemont on Roman and Church history, the statute book of the province, and innumerable _Fœdera_ by old doctors at law; he unearthed works on theology, on controversy, and on hagiology, long genealogical histories, old editions of Greek and Latin classics, and some of those enormous books, bigger than atlases, written on the occasion of the marriage of a king or his entry into Paris, or to celebrate his convalescence or his victories. “This is the oldest part of the library,” said M. de Brécé, “the Marshal’s collection. Here,” he added, opening two or three other cases, “are the additions of Duc Jean.” “Louis XVI’s minister, surnamed the ‘Good Duke’?” asked M. Lerond. “Just so,” replied M. de Brécé. Duc Jean’s collection took up all that side of the wall containing the mantelpiece and also the side looking out upon the little town. M. Lerond read out the titles stamped in gold between two bands, that decorated the backs of the volumes: _Encyclopédie méthodique_; _Œuvres de Montesquieu_; _Œvres de Voltaire_; _Œuvres de Rousseau, de l’abbé Mably, de Condillac_; and _Histoire des Établissements Européens dans les Indes_, by Raynal. He then glanced through the lesser poets and romancers with the vignettes of Grécourt, Dorat, and Saint-Lambert; the Boccaccio illustrated by Marillier, and the edition of La Fontaine, published by the “Fermiers Généraux.” “The pictures are rather free,” remarked the Duke. “I have been compelled to destroy certain works of the same period, the illustrations of which were really licentious.” M. Lerond, however, discovered, side by side with these frivolous books, a lengthy series of political and philosophical works, essays on slavery, printed accounts of the American War of Independence. He opened _Vœux d’un solitaire_, and saw that the margins were covered with notes in Duc Jean’s handwriting. He read aloud: “The author is right; man is naturally good, and the mistaken social laws alone are responsible for his evil deeds.” “That,” he added, “is what your great-great-grandfather wrote in 1790.” “How very curious!” remarked the Duke, replacing the book upon its shelf. Then, opening the cases upon the north side of the room, he said: “These are the books collected by my grandfather, who was page to Charles X.” Here M. Lerond discovered, bound in sombre sheepskin, tan calf and black shagreen, the works of Chateaubriand, a series of “Mémoires” on the Revolution, the Histories of Anquetil, Guizot, and Augustin Thierry; La Harpe’s _Cours de littérature_, Marchangy’s _Gaule poétique_, and the _Discours_ of Lainé.