on to note one salient fact, that the southern half of
the country is noticeably the poorer in MSS.

At Autun and Lyons, both of them magnificent cities in Roman times, some
very ancient books did linger, and here is room for a digression. Lyons
had a Pentateuch in Latin which was a great rarity, for not only was it
in uncials of the fifth century, but it was of the Old Latin version,
that made from the Greek before St. Jerome made his version from the
Hebrew, which we call the Vulgate.

Rather before the middle of the nineteenth century an Italian adventurer
of some learning and little virtue, the Chevalier Guglielmo (etc.)
Libri, obtained employment under the French Government in the Department
of Public Instruction, and was sent on a tour of inspection among
provincial libraries. He made this the occasion for increasing a
collection of MSS. which he had already begun for his private uses.
Where he found that the town librarian was a good easy man, he removed
(silently) from his keeping a selection of the most precious volumes,
or, if it seemed unsafe to take the whole of a MS., he detached some few
quires. Now and then he left a less valuable book in the place of the
other. His best hunting-grounds were Tours, Orleans, and Lyons. At Lyons
he conveyed away the Book of Leviticus and part of Numbers out of the
Pentateuch. He had skilled workmen in his pay at Paris, who wrote names
of other (generally Italian) monasteries and former owners on the first
page of the stolen books, and otherwise disguised them; when he had made
up a selection of a suitable bulk and attractiveness, he looked about
for a wealthy purchaser, and found one in the Earl of Ashburnham, who
bought _en bloc_, and whose manuscripts were not readily made accessible
to the public. So the Lyons Leviticus and an illustrated sixth-century
Pentateuch from Tours and many other precious things from Fleury (near
Orleans) and elsewhere reposed in England until the early eighties, when
M. Leopold Delisle made public the result of a most patient and most
subtle investigation of the whole fraud, and a selection of the best of
the plunder was got back for France. Sad to say, the municipalities
which had been most negligent in keeping their MSS. refused to
contribute to the recovery of them. They are still at Paris, to the
advantage of students, but to the discredit of the provinces.

Meanwhile Libri's reputation had been thoroughly blown upon, and he
retired from