spices.

From this ignominious fate the residue of the collection was
happily rescued by the generous exertions of the Abbe Boissot. This
excellent and learned man was the head of the Benedictines of St.
Vincent in Besancon, of which town he was himself a native. He was
acquainted with the condition of the Granvelle papers, and
comprehended their importance. In the course of eighty years, which
had elapsed since the cardinal's death, his manuscripts had come to
be distributed among several heirs, some of whom consented to
transfer their property gratuitously to the Abbe Boissot, while he
purchased that of others. In this way he at length succeeded in
gathering together all that survived of the large collection; and
he made it the great business of his subsequent life to study its
contents and arrange the chaotic mass of papers with reference to
their subjects. To complete his labors, he caused the manuscripts
thus arranged to be bound, in eighty-two volumes, folio, thus
placing them in that permanent form which might best secure them
against future accident.

The abbe did not live to publish to the world an account of his
collection, which at his death passed by his will to his brethren
of the abbey of St. Vincent, on condition that it should be for
ever open for the use of the town of Besancon. It may seem strange
that, notwithstanding the existence of this valuable body of
original documents was known to scholars, they should so rarely
have resorted to it for instruction. Its secluded situation, in the
heart of a remote province, was doubtless regarded as a serious
obstacle by the historical inquirer, in an age when the public took
things too readily on trust to be very solicitous about authentic
sources of information. It is more strange that Boissot's
Benedictine brethren should have shown themselves so insensible to
the treasures under their own roof. One of their body, Dom Prosper
l'Evesque, did indeed profit by the Boissot collection to give to
the world his Memoires de Granvelle, a work in two volumes,
duodecimo, which, notwithstanding the materials at the writer's
command, contain little of any worth, unless it be an occasional
extract from Granvelle's own correspondence.

At length, in 1834, the subject drew the attention of M. Gu