Voltaire, who was as thin as a hurdle, and a mere bag of bones, is here represented as an almost naked figure, sitting:  a slight mantle over his left arm being the only piece of drapery which the statue exhibits.  The poet is slightly inclining his head to the left, holding a pen in his right hand.  The countenance has neither the fire, force, nor truth, which Denon’s terra-cotta head of the poet seems to display.  The extremities are meagre and offensive.  In short, the whole, as it appears to me, has an air approaching the burlesque.  Opposite to this statue are the colossal busts of LA-GRANGE and MALESHERBES; while those of PEIRESC and FRANKLIN are nearly of the size of nature.  They are all in white marble.  That of Peiresc has considerable expression.

This may be called a collection of Books of Business; in other words, of books of almost every day’s reference—­which every one may consult.  It is particularly strong in Antiquities and History:  and for the latter, it is chiefly indebted to Dom Brial—­the living father of French history[107]—­that excellent and able man (who is also one of the Secretaries of the Institute) having recommended full two-thirds of the long sets (as they are called) which relate to ancient history.  The written catalogue is contained in fourteen folio volumes, interleaved; there being generally only four articles written in a page, and those four always upon the recto of each leaf.  This is a good plan:  for you may insert your acquisitions, with the greatest convenience, for a full dozen years to come.  No printed catalogue of either of these libraries, or of those of the Arsenal and Ste. Genevieve, exists:  which I consider to be a stain—­much more frightful than that which marks the copy of the “Servius in Virgilium,” just before described!

It remains now to make mention of a third Collection of Books—­which may be considered in the light both of a public and a private Library.  I mean, the Collection appropriated more particularly for the King’s private use,[108] and which is deposited beneath the long gallery of the Louvre.  Its local is as charming as it is peculiar.  You walk by the banks of the Seine, in a line with the south side of the Louvre, and gain admittance beneath an archway, which is defended by an iron grating.  An attendant, in the royal livery, opens the door of the library—­just after you have ascended above the entresol.  You enquire “whether Monsieur BARBIER, the chief Librarian, be within?” “Sir, he is never absent.  Be pleased to go straight forward, as far as you can see."[109] What a sight is before me!  Nothing less than thirteen rooms, with a small arched door in the centre, through which I gaze as if looking through a tube.  Each of these rooms is filled with books; and in one or the other of them are assembled the several visitors who come to read.  The whole is perfectly magical.  Meanwhile the nephew of M.