Mazarin was the first to comprehend the natural use of collections of books: publicity. His private library, placed before 1651 in his magnificent house in the Rue Richelieu, where later was definitively lodged the royal library, was opened to readers every Tuesday, from eight to eleven and two to five. Dispersed in 1651, at the fall of the Cardinal, it was later reconstituted, and in less than ten years afterwards the former minister was able to open it in its new quarters, the College of the Four Nations, where it is still. While the Mazarin library was administering liberally to the wants of the public, that of the King remained closely shut up in the rooms of the Cordeliers. Colbert, influenced by this state of things, offered two houses in the Rue Vivienne to the King, where the books could find a more convenient lodging, and allow room for increase. The removal was made in 1666. The royal collection for fifty-five years was lodged only a few steps from its final resting-place, the Hotel de Nevers. So was called at the end of the seventeenth century the splendid mansion of Mazarin, situated near the Porte de Richelieu, in the street of the same name, whence his books had been previously torn and sold to all the dealers. Divided into two parts at the death of the Cardinal in 1661, the palace fell, one part to the Duc de Mazarin, the other to the Duc de Nevers, his nephews. At first the King dreamed, under the advice of Louvais, of acquiring the land in the neighbourhood of the Rue Vivienne and of elevating a monument for his library, for the thought of putting the Hotel de Nevers to this use had not then occurred to him; but the Duc de Mazarin having alienated his part of the palace in favour of the Company of the Indies, Abbé Bignon, then royal librarian, perceived the part he could play from that fact.