Note 242 — Chapter V

Fouquet, however, was very fond of foreign books; the catalogue (dated 1665) of his library, drawn up after his committal, shows that he had a fairly large number of English books. He was the earliest known French possessor of a Shakespeare. The catalogue, it is true, reveals the fact that he preserved it "in his garret":

"Livres in folio qui se trouvent dans le grenier:

Comédies de Jazon [i.e., Ben Jonson] en anglois, 2 vol., London, 16403l.

Idem, comédies angloises10s.

Shakespeares comédies angloises1l.

Fletcher commédies angloises1l."

(MS. 9,438 français, in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.)

The second in date of the French possessors of copies of Shakespeare was, strange to say, no less a person than the patron of Racine and Boileau, the Roi-Soleil himself. Looking over, some time ago, at the Bibliothèque Nationale, the original manuscript slips made in 1684 by the royal librarian, Nicolas Clément, for his catalogue of the books confided to his care, I found one inscribed: "Will. Shakspeare, poeta Anglicus. Opera poetica, continentia tragoedias, comoedias et historiolas, Anglice, Londres, Th. Cotes, 1632, fol." And to this, considering that he had to deal with a thoroughly unknown person, Clément was careful to add a note that people might be informed what was to be thought of the poet. This is (so far as now known) the earliest French allusion to Shakespeare: "Ce poète anglois a l'imagination assès belle, il pense naturellement; mais ces belles qualitez sont obscurcies par les ordures qu'il mêle dans ses comédies."