The library belonging to this abbey was celebrated in the middle ages, and there were monks of literary eminence in the house. Dacherius was the librarian when he composed his _Spicilegium_. Usuard compiled a martyrology. They had a printing press set up immediately after the invention of printing, which gives one a favorable idea of their mental activity. Most of these old monastic libraries were accessible to all; that of the Abbey of St. Victor was open to the public three days in the week; and there were public libraries attached to some of the parish churches. In the time of Charles V., rightly named the Wise, he ordered the Royal Library of Paris to be illuminated with thirty portable lamps, and that a silver one should be suspended in the centre for the benefit of those students who prolonged their researches into the night. The numerous collections of books in Paris made that city very attractive to certain minds even in the middle ages. Richard de Bury, Bishop of Durham, in England, who established the first public library in that country, used to resort to Paris for fresh supplies. "O blessed God of gods in Sion!" he exclaims, "what a flood of pleasure rejoices our heart whenever we are at liberty to visit Paris, that paradise of the world, where the days always seem too short and too few through the immensity of our love! There are libraries more redolent of delight than all the shops of aromatics; there are the flowering meadows of all volumes that can be found anywhere. There, indeed, untying our purse-strings, and opening our treasures, we disperse money with a joyful heart (evidently the truth, for he paid the Abbot of St. Albans fifty pounds weight of silver for thirty or forty volumes), and ransom with dirt books that are beyond all price. But lo! how good and pleasant a thing it is to gather together in one place the arms of clerical warfare, that there may be a supply of them for us to use in the wars against heretics, should they ever rise up against us!"