Gassendi has left us an account of the library collected by Peiresc. Besides his acquisitions in the East, of which we have spoken elsewhere, the books came in crowds from his agents in France and Germany, and his scribes in the Vatican and Escorial. 'When any library was to be sold by public outcry, he took care to buy the best books, especially if they were of some neat edition that he did not already possess.' He bound them in red morocco with his cypher or initials in gold. One binder always lived in the house, and sometimes several were employed at once, 'when the books came rolling in on every side.' He would even bind up bits of old volumes and worm-eaten leaves; good books, he said, were so badly used by the vulgar, that he would try to have them prized at least for their beauty, and so perhaps they might escape the hands of the tobacconist and the grocer. A treatise published by Jerome Alexander contained a wonderful description of the establishment. 'Your house and library,' says the dedication, 'are a firmament wherein the stars of learning shine: the desks are lit with star-light and the books are in constellations: and you sit like the sun in the midst, embracing and giving light to them all.' Peiresc was anxious to circulate the book, which contained a rare treatise by Hesychius; but he took care to compose another dedication, which was printed and inserted without comment. Notwithstanding his profuse purchases he did not leave a large collection at his death. His friends complained that he lent 'a world of books' that were never returned, and that he was especially lavish of any works that could be replaced by purchase. 'About ten years after his death,' says his friend Lemontey, 'his relations brought his books to Paris, where I saw them in 1647; they formed a great company of volumes, most curiously bound. They ought to have been sold _en bloc_, but as the Genius of the library had fled, the Fates ordained that they should be torn asunder.' Most of the books were purchased for the College de Navarre. A great number of the MSS. were destroyed, though there are still a few volumes in the public library at Carpentras. These were purchased from Louis Thomassin, a member of Peiresc's family, by Don Malachi d'Inguimbert, librarian to Pope Clement XII., who founded the collection of Carpentras when he became Bishop of the diocese. There is a tradition that Peiresc's correspondence, containing many thousands of documents, was destroyed by his grand-niece, 'a kind of female Omar,' who insisted in using the papers for lighting fires and making trays for her silk-worms.