Next comes a Christian Calendar, from the dominical year Dcclxxv. to Dccxcvii.  On casting the eye down these years, and resting it on that of Dcclxxxi, you observe, in the columns of the opposite leaf, this very important entry, or memorandum—­in the undoubted writing of the time:  “In isto Anno ivit Dominus, REX KAROLUS, ad scm Petrvm et baptisatus est filius eius PIPPINUS a Domino Apostolico;” from which I think it is evident (as is observed in the account of this precious volume in the Annales Encyclopediques, vol. iii. p. 378) that this very book was commanded to be written chiefly to perpetuate a notice of the baptism, by Pope Adrian, of the emperor’s son PIPPIN.[111] There is no appearance whatever of fabrication, in this memorandum.  The whole is coeval, and doubtless of the time when it is professed to have been executed.  The last two pages are occupied by Latin verses, written in a lower-case, cursive hand; but contemporaneous, and upon a purple ground.  From these verses we learn that the last scribe, or copyist, of the text of this splendid volume, was one GODESCALE, or GODSCHALCUS, a German.  The verses are reprinted in the Decades Philosophiques.

This MS. was given to the Abbey of St. Servin, at Toulouse; and it was religiously preserved there, in a case of massive silver, richly embossed, till the year 1793; when the silver was stolen, and the book carried off, with several precious relics of antiquity, by order of the President of the Administration, (Le Sieur S*****) and thrown into a magazine, in which were many other vellum MSS. destined ...  TO BE BURNT!  One’s blood curdles at the narrative.  There it lay—–­ expecting its melancholy fate; till a Monsieur de Puymaurin, then detained as a prisoner in the magazine, happened to throw his eye upon the precious volume; and, writing a certain letter about it, to a certain quarter—­(which letter is preserved in the fly leaves, but of which I was denied the transcription, from motives of delicacy—­) an order was issued by government for the conveyance of the MS. to the metropolis.  This restoration was effected in May 1811.[112] I think you must admit, that, in every point of view, THIS MS. ranks among the most interesting and curious, as well as the most ancient, of those in the several libraries of Paris.

But this is the only piece of antiquity, of the book kind, in the Library.  Of modern performances, I ought to mention a French version of OSSIAN, in quarto, which was the favourite reading book of the ex-Emperor; and to which Isabey, at his express command, prefixed a frontispiece after the design of Gerard.  This frontispiece is beautifully and tenderly executed:  a group of heroes, veiled in a mist, forms the back-ground.  The only other modern curiosity, in this way, which I deem it necessary to notice, is a collection of ORIGINAL DRAWINGS of flowers, in water colours, by REDOUTE, upon vellum:  in seven folio volumes; and which cost 70,000 francs.[113] Nothing can exceed—­and very few efforts of the pencil can equal—­this wonderful performance.  Such a collection were reasonable at the fore-mentioned price.