t extensive and most complete of any in the world, possessing
nearly 1,000,000 books and printed pamphlets, 80,000 MSS, 100,000
medals, 1,400,000 engravings, 300,000 maps and plans. This institution
may be considered to owe its foundation to St. Louis, who first made the
attempt of forming a public library, and arranged some volumes in an
apartment attached to the Holy Chapel; under successive reigns the
number gradually increased, whilst the locality assigned for them was
often changed, and it was not until the reign of Louis XV that they were
placed where they now are, in a most extensive building, formerly the
residence of Cardinal Mazarin, which, seen from the Rue Richelieu,
presents nothing but a great ugly dead wall, with a high roof to it, and
here and there a few square holes for windows, but when you enter the
court-yard, you find rather a fine building than otherwise, and the
interior displays, by the vast size of the apartments, some idea of what
its former grandeur must have been; the richness of the ornaments and
decorations in most instances are destroyed, and replaced by books, with
which the walls are covered. The engravings occupy the ground floor, and
amongst them are to be found fifty thousand portraits, including every
eminent character which Europe has produced, and presenting all the
varieties of costumes existing at the different epochs in which they
flourished; in one of the rooms where the prints are kept is an oil
portrait, in profile, of the unfortunate King John of France, which is
curious as an antiquity, being an original, and executed at a time when
the art of portrait painting was very little known, as John died in the
year 1364. On ascending the staircase to the right, a piece of framed
tapestry must be remarked, as having formed part of the furniture of the
chateau of Bayard.

Those who are curious in typographical specimens must ask to see the
most ancient printed book _with a date_, being 1457, also the Bible,
called Mazarin, printed in 1456, with cut metal types. The oldest
manuscript is one of Josephus, and others are of the fifth and sixth
centuries; the amateurs of autography will be gratified in seeing
letters from Henri IV to Gabrielle d'Estree, and the writing of Francis
I, Turenne, Madame de Maintenon, Voltaire, Rousseau, Racine, Corneille;
Boileau, Bossuet, etc. Amongst other interesting objects is the chair of
Dagobert, which is supposed to be much older even than his time, a