The Abbe Boisot was another of the scholars who lived entirely for books. While quite a young man he acquired a considerable library in his travels through Spain and Italy; and in 1664, during an official visit to Besancon, he was so fortunate as to acquire the MSS. of the Cardinal de Granvelle, who had been the confidential minister of the Emperor Charles V. Boisot wrote a delightful account of the adventures through which this collection had passed. 'At first,' he says, 'the servants used what they pleased, and then the neighbours' children helped themselves; when some packing-cases were wanted, the butler, to show his economy, sold the records contained in them to a grocer.' At last they were all tired of these 'useless old papers,' and determined to throw them away. Jules Chifflet, according to Guigard, was the means of saving the remainder. He examined a number of the documents and recognised their importance, though they were mostly in cipher; but he died before they could be sorted out. Boisot bought what he could from the heirs, and found a good many more MSS. in the neighbourhood. They passed with the rest of Boisot's books to the Abbey of St. Vincent at Besancon; and during the Revolution the whole collection became the property of the citizens and was transferred to the public library. The hereditary treasures of the Bouhier family were dispersed in the same way through several provincial libraries. The collection had begun in the reign of Louis XII., and something had been done in each generation afterwards by way of adding fine books and manuscripts. Etienne Bouhier had collected in all parts of Italy. Jean Bouhier in 1642 bought the accumulations of Pontus de Thyard, the learned Bishop of Chalons. His father's own library had been dispersed among his children; but Jean Bouhier succeeded in getting it together again, and added a large number of MSS. which he had gathered for the illustration of the history of Burgundy. The library became still more famous in the time of his grandson the President Jean Bouhier, who has been admired as the type of the true bibliophile. The bibliomaniac heaps up books from avarice or some animal instinct; he is a collector, it is said, 'without intelligent curiosity.' Bouhier used to read his books and make notes upon them; and it is said that he carried the practice to such excess as to deface with marginal scribblings the finest work of Henri Estienne and Antoine Verard. A visitor to his library described the sober magnificence of the rosewood shelves with silken hangings in which the rare editions and long rows of manuscripts were ranged. In the next generation there was a startling change. The library had been left to Bouhier's son-in-law, Chartraire de Bourbonne: the grave offspring of Aldus and Gryphius found themselves in company with poets of the _talon rouge_ and muses of the _Opera bouffe_. When the gay De Bourbonne died, the ill-assorted crowd