I am happy to report that
Trianon and
Madame Royale can both be found at the Bodleian Library.
From Stephanie Mann:
Sir Thomas Bodley died on January 28, 1613. His greatest accomplishment
was the restoration of the University of Oxford's library, which had
been purged during the reign of Edward VI of all its "papist" volumes,
according to the library's website:
Duke Humfrey’s library survived in its original form for just over
sixty years; in 1550 it was denuded of its books after a visitation by
Richard Cox, Dean of the newly-founded Christ Church. He was acting
under legislation passed by King Edward VI designed to purge the English
church of all traces of Roman Catholicism, including ‘superstitious
books and images’. In the words of the historian Anthony Wood, ‘some of
those books so taken out by the Reformers were burnt, some sold away for
Robin Hood’s pennyworths, either to Booksellers, or to Glovers to press
their gloves, or Taylors to make measures, or to Bookbinders to cover
books bound by them, and some also kept by the Reformers for their own
use’.
Oxford University was not a wealthy institution and did not
have the resources to build up a collection of new printed books to
replace those dispersed. In 1556, therefore, the desks were sold, and
the room was taken over by the Faculty of Medicine.
The library
was rescued by Sir Thomas Bodley (1545–1613), a Fellow of Merton College
who had travelled extensively in Europe and had between 1585 and 1596
carried out several diplomatic missions for Queen Elizabeth I. He
married a rich widow whose husband had made a fortune from trading in
pilchards and, in his retirement from public life, decided, in his own
words, to ‘set up my staff at the library door in Oxon; being thoroughly
persuaded, that in my solitude, and surcease from the Commonwealth
affairs, I could not busy myself to better purpose, than by reducing
that place (which then in every part lay ruined and waste) to the public
use of students’.
His money was accepted in 1598, and the old library was refurnished
to house a new collection of some 2,500 books, some of them given by
Bodley himself, some by other donors. A librarian, Thomas James, was
appointed, and the library finally opened on 8 November 1602. The first
printed catalogue followed in 1605; a new edition of 1620 ran to 675
pages.
(Read more.)
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