The Didot Sale.

THE DIDOT SALE .

[ We are anxious to render tho Masonic Magazine an useful record for the Masonic student , archaeologist , and bibliophilist , and we therefore think it right to preserve a record of the sale which appeared in the rimes , and which is simply invaluable to book collectors for the accuracy by which it is marked , and the facts aud figures it so effectively sets before ua . It must have taken much time and patience to prepare , and seems deserving of a better fate aud a longer existence than the ephemeral appearance of a daily journal . To the Times the sincere thanks of all lovers of books are justly due . —ED . ]

THE greatest event in the world of old books and manuscripts this year has been the second Didot sale , brought to a close in Paris on last Saturday , after six days' struggle among the bibliophiles . The number of lots was slightly over 500 , but all were of such high intrinsic value and importance that the amount of money produced by their dispersion is equivalent to about £ 37 , 000 of our money ; to which sum we have to add the charge of 5 per cent , which is made in France upon the proceeds of each article sold b

y auction , and which is payable by the purchaser . A French book-auction presents a scene not easily realised by those who have only attended similar gatherings in London . The promoter of the sale is usually a bookseller who is the proprietor ' s agent , and who , sitting below the commissaire-priseur , or auctioneer , at one side , proclaims the number and the name of the lot , which are repeated in louder tones bthe crier and the commissaire-priseur himself

y The first bid is also made b y the agent in the fashion of what we call a Dutch auction , and at the lowest price mentioned by him the real bidding begins , amid such a stentorian reverberation of sounds as is never heard in our quieter English auction-rooms . At the Didot sale , the old rivalry between the two nations that fought at Oressy and Agincourt was renewed , but in a more friendly way than in the days of the Black Prince and Henry V . ; and if

" the bulldog islanders " carried away some of the treasures that had excited the cupidit y of the French libraries , it may to some extent be considered that they were reaping part of the harvest sown of yore by the knights who battled against Joan of Arc .

The preceding remarks may serve as a fitting introduction to the notice of two objects of extraordinary value , Nos . 17 and 19 , the former of which brought 76 , 000 f . and the latter 18 , 500 f . The first of these two was the costliest lot of the sale , bringing , as it did , more than double the price of the manuscript which stood next to it in money value . It was a missal , believed to have been executed for Charles VI . of France as a present to his daughter Catherineon her marriage with Henry V . of Englandand to have been in

, , the possession successively of our Henry V ., Henry VI ., Henry VII ., and Henry VIII . But we must confess that the provenance , as the French st y le it , is not clearly proved . The manuscript has been in the hands of the monks of Tongerloo since 1545 , when it was sold b y them by " un nomine Gilles . " In the catalogue this is said to have been " lors du schisme sous Henri VIIL , " but the statement is far from satisfactory . The property of monasteries ancl

cathedrals was easily stolen or alienated in 1545 , but the contents of the Royal hereditary library ( omitting all reference to the ugly gap between Henry VI . and Henry VII . ) would not be so easily transferred to foreign hands . It is admitted that the first two leaves of the manuscript—which form the whole basis of the assignment of the missal to Charles VI . and Henry V . —are additions made earl y in the 16 th century in one of the two instances it is

; supposed that the new leaf was a copy of the actual ori ginal which had been lost by attrition ; but the assumption is gratuitous , and a tradition of over three centuries is not sufficient to identify the Didot manuscript with what it is asserted to be . We have no doubt that the circumstances were sufficiently