that I were free, and had time to read them. I should not feel any
envy then of M. de Rosny's wealth or the Persian's mountain of gold.'
While residing at Strasburg he bought the manuscripts belonging to the
Cathedral from some of the soldiers by whom the city was more than once
pillaged during the wars of religion.

About the year 1603 Bongars arranged with Paul Petau for the joint
purchase of a large collection of manuscripts, which had belonged to the
Abbey of St. Benoit-sur-Loire, and had been saved by the bailiff Pierre
Daniel when the Abbey was plundered. The share of Bongars in this
collection was transferred to Strasburg, and passed eventually with the
rest of his books to the public library of the city of Berne.

Paul Petau was a man of universal accomplishments. He was the rival of
Scaliger in the science of chronology; his doctrinal works are praised as
'a monument of useful labour'; 'he solaced his leisure hours with Greek
and Hebrew, as well as Latin verse,' and, according to Hallam's judgment,
obtained in the last subject the general approbation of the critics. He
formed a valuable museum of Greek, Roman, and Gaulish antiquities, with a
cabinet of Frankish coins, to which Peiresc was a generous contributor.
His library contained several books that had belonged to Grolier; but it
was chiefly remarkable for its MSS., of which several were published by
Sirmond and Du Chesne among other materials for the history of France.
Many of them had been acquired from the collection of Greek and Hebrew
books formed by Jean de Saint Andre, or out of the mass of chronicles,
romances, and old French poems belonging to Claude Fauchet, and a large
portion came, as we have seen, out of an ancient Benedictine Abbey. Paul
Petau's books of all kinds were left to his son Alexander. The printed
books, comprising a number of finely illustrated works on archaeology,
were sold at the Hague in 1722; the sale included the old library
inherited by Francis Mansard, and the MSS. relating to Roman antiquities
that had been the property of Lipsius. A thousand splendid volumes on
parchment, the pride of the elder Petau, described by all who saw them in
terms of glowing admiration, were sold in his son's lifetime to Queen
Christina of Sweden. She had always intended to buy some great
collection, and had thought among others of buying up those of Henri de
Mesmes, of De Bethune, and the Cardinal Mazarin. She was delighted with
her new acquisiti