Judicis, Louis - Le Collectionneur. a Collector's Portrait (1903)

7/29/2019 Judicis, Louis - Le Collectionneur. a Collector's Portrait (1903)

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A Collector's Portrait


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CORNELLUNIVERSITYLIBRARY

THIS BOOK IS ONE OF ACOLLECTION MADE BYBENNO LOEWY

1854-1919AND BEQUEATHED TOCORNELL UNIVERSITY


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Z992 J92""" ""'**"">' '"''TLe collectionneur.

olin 3 1924 031 034 923


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The original of tiiis book is intine Cornell University Library.

There are no known copyright restrictions inthe United States on the use of the text.

http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031034923


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A Collector's Portrait


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OF THIS BOOK TWELVE COPIES HAVE BEENPRINTED ON IMPERIAL JAPANESE VELLUM,AND TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE ONENFIELD PAPER.


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LB COLLBCTIONN^UR

A Collector's PortraitTranslated from the French ofLouis Judicis, by E. F. Kunz.Mar^nal Illustrations byFrank A. Nankivell.

NEW YORKTHE LITERARY COLLECTOR PRESS1903


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copyrig-ht 1903By The Literary Collector Press

Mi^lS


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To My Old FriendColonel V

Aegrotans aegrotanti,caecus unoculo.

My dear ColonelYour sister, Madame M , who knows

your terrible temper, has challenged me to dedi-cate this little book to you.

I risk it.But donot bite off your beautiful moustache,

s bleu


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CONTENTSI.

Antiquity of the Collecting Mania.II.How One Becomes a Collector.III.

Physical and Moral Portrait of theCollector.

IV.Varieties of the Genus Collector.

V.The Collector of Old Books.


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they not given to the fad of ancestorcollecting? Not only ugly dolls ofwax, like those that were later tobe found piled up in the patriciancabinets of Rome

Huraeroque minoremCorvinuni, et Galbam auriculis

nasoque carentem;but real personages, human beingswho had lived, who had laughed, whohad w^ept, who had loved. And thesesacred relics, properly varnished,swaddled and tied up, in their casesof sycamore, passed on to the stateof household goods and figuredvery properly in a legal stock-taking.Herodotus affirms that in an urgentcase their proprietors did not hesitateto take them to a pawnshop. Whoknows but that we may find in the


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tomb of some usurer contemporarywith the Pharaohs a papyrus note-book bearing an item of this kind"Lent to surveyor Metmoses onethousand Theban shekels on thebody of his grandfather, somewhatdamaged."Another African people, the Car-thaginians, also had the collectingmania. It is certain that after thebattle of Cannee Hannibal gatheredthe gold rings of Roman knights lefton the field and filled three Atticmedimns with them,these w^ere thedekalitres of the time. The glorioustrophies were buried afterward underthe ruins of Carthage. Now andthen the Arabs find some of them andmake ear-rings of them. One of myfriends, a Turkish cavalryman, clever


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in argument, bought one of theseheroic relics from a Jew of Constan-tine; he will die in the persuasionthat he possesses the signet-rings ofv^milius Paulus and Terentius Varro.

It w^as only a little later that thelove of collecting spread among theRomans ; but from the very beginningit manifested itself with remarkableintensity. What a furious collectorwas Verres! Pictures, statues,chalices, tripods and candle-sticks, allthe gods and goddesses, all the heroesand all the courtesans of Greece, allthe divine works of art in gold, silverand ivory, which the soldiers ofMummius crushed to make crestsfor their helmets, these creationsof genius, these treasures, thesemarvels, he piled up pell-mell in the


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atrium of his palace, which resembledthe Museum of Cluny in the Quartierdes Carines.This was the first and most

magnificent triumph of Roman bric-a-brac. Even Augustus, emperorthough he was, would not havedared to sweep the world as thesimple proconsul had done; and yethe, too, had the love of curiosities.He had collected, in his little house

on Mount Palatine, a splendid assort-ment of Corinthian vases ; but he con-fined himself to this specialty. TheRomans ridiculed him and perpetratedmany a joke on the subject. One daya mischievous wag, attacking withone blow the mania of Caesar and therather doubtful reputation his fatherhad left, ventured to scribble on the


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pedestal of one of the imperial statuesthis irreverent inscription

Pater Argentarius ; ego Corintharius.All tastes, it is said, are to be

found in nature. Augustus waspartial to Corinthian vases, LucuUuspreferred old toggery. He possessedfive thousand cloaks. What a custom-er for the Prince Eugene of that epoch

!

Such acloak-room one would expect tofind in Bajazet's harem, which, theysay, -was peopled by three thousandhouris. Cloak-room and harem nodoubt containedmore than one uselesstreasure. LucuUus, however, moregenerous in these things than the sul-tan, willingly lent to his neighborwhat he did not use for himself. Man-agers of pageants often borrowed hisfinery. That was how they managed


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to fit up those "wonderful sceneswhichalternated, alas, on the theatre ofMar-cellus with bear and panther showsand occupied three orfourhours in theentr'actes of a comedy of RubrenusLappa, or a tearful drama of Pupius.But do not be too hard on Lucullus

with his trumpery. Therewas a phil-osopher, the Stoic Seneca, w^ho madehimself a present of five hundredtables. Five hundred tables ! Neithermore nor less ; Xiphilin says so. Andw^hat tables! All of thuja wood!Perhaps you will ask, what is thujaw^ood ? I do not know and it is prob-able that I never will know ; all thatI do know is that thuja-wood grew inthe gorges of the Atlas and that itcost the very eyes ofyour head. Thesetables sold by weight. You put the


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table in one pan of the balance, silverby the bushel in the other side : -whenthe scales balanced, the dealer tookthe money and the buyer the goods.Cicero one day indulged his fancy tothe tune of one million sesterces ! Butwhat, in heaven's name, did these peo-ple eat on their wonderful tables ?Parrots' brains, I fancy, and nightin-gales' tongues, like the Emperor Helio-gabalus.

I will cite one more example of thecollecting mania among the Romans.It is proved by the testimony of DionCassius and Suetonius that Domitiancollected flies.

-^ s


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II

HOW ONE BECOMES A COLLECTORA LL the modes which characterize

and differentiate the human self(pardon, O reader) have their simi-laires, as M. Baudrillart -would say, inother species of the animal kingdom.Thus, as there are animals,Of the ravenous type,as the shark;Hysterical ones,as the jack-ass;Plagiarists,as the monkeyThinkers,as the troutMathematicians,as the crane


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So there are animal collectorsThe ant collects seedsThe field-mouse, filbertsThe dog, fleasThe magpie, table silver.But the ant, the fieldmouse, the dog,

and the magpie are beasts devoid offi"ee will, and forced to obey their in-stinct, as a cuckoo, once wound, isforced to mark the hour.Quite different is the condition of

man.God has made him free. He thinks,

he deliberates, he w^ills, he cannot exe-cute any action, even the most insig-nificant, without being driven to it bysome determining motive. Only, forthe superficial observer, this motive isnot always easy to discover.When you see one of your fellow-


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beings munching shrimps or spittingin a hole, you never think of askinghim the reason of so simpk an action.These are manifestations proper tothe sensual stomach and the melan-choly brain. But if you should sur-prise one in the perpetration of someact which cannot be explained by anyphysical or mental necessity likethrumming a guitar before the knaveof diamondsyouwôuld torture yoursoul to divine the cause ofwhatwouldseem to you a mental aberration.Well, this musical pastime to which aSpaniard ofmy acquaintance devotedhimself (whose lamentable history Iwîll some day recount) isnot more ex-traordinary in my opinion than thesight of a man, well organized, soundin body and mmd, wêaned at the


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right time and properly vaccinated,abandoning himself with all gaiety ofheart, wthout being condemned toit, to this singular passion, the collect-ing mania.Awag one day asked bywhat series

of metamorphoses a human beingcould transform himself into a grocer.It would be more rational to askwhatphysical or moral catastrophes couldlead a man, a creature of a lovingGod, to transform himself into a col-lector.This problem has occupied me for a

long time, and after a laborious andconscientious investigation, I havediscovered some of the causes whichmay produce this curious incarnation.My inquiry -was based on ten collec-tors. I have discovered that they


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contracted the infirmity in the follow-ing waysFourfrom despairing loveTwofrom political exasperationOnefrom chagrin atbecoming baldOnein consequence of a disagree-

ment with his curd.One^from having frozen his nose in

KabylieOnefrom having missed the train

at Brussels.You see from these cases that the

primary cause, the determining reasonof the collecting mania is always somedeception or some misfortune.As I expected.


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inPHYSICAL AND MORAL PORTRAITOF THE COLLECTOR

IV TONTAIGNE, following ValeriusMaximus, reports that a Roman

magistrate, a praetor named Cippus,having gone to bed with the impres-sion left on him by the stirring spec-tacle of a bull-fight, w^as much sur-prised on awaking, to discover on hisbrow a triumphant pair of horns.This astonishment on the part of the

prEetor Cippus was no doubt verynatural; what is less so is to find a


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skeptical philosopher like Montaigneattributing so strange a fact to thepower of the imagination. It is notto be denied, however, that an intense,incessant thought can, in time, pro-foundty modify our faculties, and, inconsequence, the material envelopew^hich serves them as cage.And please note that it is here not a

question of the face, that mirror ofthe soul, as itwas called even before thedeluge. No, I am speaking of the gen-eral economy of the body and of allthe physical organs which are the in-struments and servitors, but also,note this point,the interpreters ofour passions.Everybody know^s that certain pro-

fessions imprint very distinctivemarkson our bodies. It doesnot take a very


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skillful observer to recognize at aglanceA tailor, by the convexity of his

tibiasA sailor, by the roll of his shoulders

and the balancing svv^ing of his arrasA danseuse, by the exaggeration of

her soleus muscle;A fire captain by the Olympic pose

of his head.These marks are only the visible ex-

pression of purely physical causes;they are creases which the body ac-quires by the permanence or the veryfrequent repetition of certain atti-tudes.But the attitudes of the soul, who

has ever seen them? And_ hoAV canhabits peculiar to it model our bodyin hollows or in relief, when their im-


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material essence admits of neitherdepression nor protrusion? How,further, can the human soul,whetheryou assign it a residence in the brain,as Euler has done, or in the spleen, asWilliam Flugge, or in the tip of thenose, as I know not who,how canit modify in any way the form of atibia or of an elbow? Grave prob-lem which I do not attempt to solve.And yet it is not to be denied that forhim who has learned to read it, thehumanbody,I mean the entire body,from the left shoulder to the rightshoulder, and from the heels to thehead, is a book very legible andsometimes very indiscreet.

I know^ a man, not a physician or aphilosopher, as you might think, butan optician, a modest manufacturer


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pince-nez and barometers, -who in hisleisure moments has made a profoundstudy of these obscure matters.This man, this savant, is able todiagnose with absolute certainty thedisposition, the tastes, the aptitudesof the first comer, seen from the back.Show him any passer-by,this mon-sieur, for example, who has justelbowed by you and is now joggingalong twenty steps ahead, with nosein air and umbrella under his arm,my optician will tell you whether theindividual in question is a drunkardor a gambler, and in the latter casewhether he has a preference for bac-carat or bezique. Ask him by whatindex he forms his opinion and he willsay, How^ do I know ? an impercep-tible swelling of the shoulder-blade, a


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microscopic deviation of the innerankle. Starting from this, he willreadily explain to you his wholesystem and in ten minutes you will beconvinced, as he is, that the knee ofa stingy man is very different fromthat of an ambitious one, and thatbetw^een the calf of an entomologistand that of a melomaniac there is averitable gulf.These abstruse considerations may

seem rather irrelevant, but they arenot really foreign to mj'- subject. Iconsider them indispensable to makeyou accept without opposition thephysical portrait of the collector, suchas I shall present to you. Theoriginal of my portrait was commu-nicated to me by my barometer-maker, whose judgment in such mat-


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ters cannot be questioned any morethan axioms.So I beginThe collecting-mania is not a bed of

Procrustus. The collector is then in-differently tall, medium, or small ofstature.The upper part of his body, thebust, stands forth audaciously and

forms with the bones of the pelvis anangle of about thirty-five to fortydegrees.A well-rounded collector would be a

monstrosity.He has a large, flat foot, slightlyturned outward, an honest, con-templative foot.His hands are long, knotty, hairy,

and of doubtful neatness.His neck is like his hands.


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His brow is bald, smooth andshiny.His eyes large, round, protruding.His eyebrows constantly raised.His ears are spreading and mobile.His nose is prominent ; an embar-

rassing, noisy, ambitious nose.As to moral qualities, ifone excludes

the passion of which he is the slave,the collector distinguishes himselfespecially by negative qualities. Tospeak frankly, he has neither vicesnor virtues, but simply properties,like inanimate objects. I heard ofonewhose mucous membrane secreted acalcareous deposit, a function of themadrepore.Yet this dull, sluggish, flabby brain

has an irritable fibre running throughit. Irritate that and it will start up


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with such hissing, shoot forth suchshrill, piercing sounds that you willthink you have set foot in a nest ofmarmots. This fibre is the jealous,absolute, ungovernable passion, thehobby of Uncle Toby; it is the fairyTurlutaine, the fixed idea, the ideatyrant, tinder the influence of hismonomania the collector becomestransformed. Instead of the apathe-tic creature of a moment ago, you seea fanatic, an enthusiast, a visionary,a demoniac. Let his passion rise to aparoxysm,as it has beenknown toand the collector becomes capable ofall heroisms as well as all crimes.Levaillant bivouacked in the midst

of lions and faced death a hundredtimes in the hope of obtaining a spar-row lacking in his collection.


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Rene Cardillac assassinated cus-tomers to keep his collection of jewelscomplete.Give Levaillant the passion for

trinkets and Rene Cardillac the hobbyof humming-birds and each would nodoubt do what the other did.Conclusion: Do not cast stones at

the collector of jewels, but be carefulnot to trust him w^ith your w^atch.


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lYVARIETIES OF THE GENUS COLLECTOR/COLLECTORS may be divided into^^ two classes:Pacotilleurs, or trash-collectors.Specialists.

.

Pacotilleurs recognize as founder oftheir sect the pro-consul Verres, beforementioned. The philosopher Dama-sippus also was a pacotilleur; heturned his house into a store-roomfor bric-a-brac and bartered his lastgold-piece for the foot-bath of the


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robber Sisyphus. The type of Yerresand Damasippus we now know bythe hundred. They collect, they pileup w^ithout choice, without prefer-ence, without system, everything thatarouses their cupidity, whether by itsantiquity, its rarity or the oddnessof its form.They are gourmands also for souve-

nirs. By this sentimental term theydesignate all sorts ofgew-gaws whichhave at some time belonged to somehistoric personage or have figured asaccessories in some romantic adven-ture.Collectors of this class are known

by the general name of curiosity-col-lectors.There is nothing so freakish, so

crazy, so extravagant, so anarchical.


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as the museum of a pacotilleur. It isa pandemonium where, stuffed withhair, carved in wood, chiseled in iron,cast in bronze, all the inventions,dreams, nightmares, of all societies,all reigns, all times, all zones, meet,jostle, elbow, irritate and smothereach other. Have you ever read Bal-zac's "Peau de Chagrin?'' Have youever penetrated with Raphael intothe gloomy shop ofJob ? Well, in thecabinet of the pacotilleur, as in the denof the old antiquary, you will find,side by side, the charming and thehorrible, the serious and the ridiculous,the beautiful and the misshapen;crocodiles of the Nile, faiences ofPalissy, tankards, ostrich eggs, fossilbones, laces, bludgeons, moccasins,reliquaries, and frigates in ivory. If


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your friendI suppose a pacotilleurmight have a friendmakes pretencesin historical science, he is capable ofshowing you the pole-ax of CharlesMartel, the tooth-pick of the AbbeSugar, and the gorget of Corbulon.The class of pacotilleurs is relativelysmall in number. The reason for this

is simple: as their collections includeall objects known and unknown andrecommend themselves only by thequantity and variety of specimens,they are veritable gulfs which all thegold of California could not fill.The class of specialists includes all

collectors w^ho, either by taste or bynecessity, are interested in a singlecategory of objects.

It may be subdivided into twogroups


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The routiniers, or imitators.The fantaisistes, or vagarians.Routiniers are not corrupt by na-

ture ; it is the contagion of example,the spirit of imitation that has un-done them. One might say of mostof these unfortunates what Horacesaid of his contemporary Iccius, amad lover of Chinese curios and oldbooks

Pollicitus melioraThe routinier always trudges along

in the path beaten by his predecessors,and his ambition is satisfied in collect-ing those things that have been col-lected before by others. There is aseries of collectible objects famed intradition, such as: Pictures, medals,faiences, books, shells.You need not fear that a routinier


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will ever venture beyond these oft-explored regions. Nay, have I notseen them condemn themselves tonosing about one little comer, anacre, a perch, even a fathom, foreverturning about in this narrow circlelike a squirrel in his wheel ?

I knew one collector who, in thematter of pictures, valued only thecanvases of painters born at Magny-en-Vexin.Another, a conchologist, has a pas-

sion only for the edible snail.As for the faintaisistes, they are the

lost children, the rogues, the zephyrsof curio-hunting.

It is almost unbelievable whatextravagances of the imagination amonomaniac can indulge in when hismaniahasno otherguide than caprice.


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There has probably never been asingle product of nature or of humapindustry that has not been the objectof a fantaisiste's search.

I have a relativea grave professorin one of our leading collegeswhohas passed twenty years of his lifecollecting umbrellas.

It is not unusual to find personscollecting pipes, musical snuff-boxes,nut-crackers, almanacs, carp-fins.

I have heard of one w^ho made amuseum of mustard pots.And you, Catherine, my pearl ofcooks, was it the master you served

before me, the Dutch numismatist,who inspired you with this inordinatefondness for uniform buttons ? Flatbuttons and round buttons, buttonsof tin and buttons of brass, buttons


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stamped with a simple number, withtwo cannon crossed, with an anchor,with a hunting horn, with a star or agrenade, what have I not found inthat littlechamois bag, which passed,I don't know how, from my loto boxto the bottom of your trunk! Andeach one of these treasures calls upsome memory for you, I suppose,Catherine ?Despite of, or, ifyou choose, by very

reason of their excesses, specialists,that is fantaisistes and routiniers,are the only collectors worthy of thename. Pacotilleurs have really notthe true manners and habits of theclass. Because their mania is directedtoward everything it is in realitydirected toward nothing. No objectis ever lacking in their collection


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because their collection can never becomplete. So they know nothing ofthe violent desire, the anguish, theitching of the specialist, who isalways in expectation, always insearch of some tantalizing specimen,some image of Brutus or Cassiusw^hich shines only by its absence fromhis cabinet or his shelf.But this endless search for the un-

found object, this constant strain,this moral tetanus of the fixed idea,is in fact the necessary stimulus, theindispensable motive, the raisond'etre, in short, of the collector.It is said that Pope Clement VI.,

touched by the despair of Petrarch,offered to release him from his vowsso that he might marry Laura, butthe poet refused because he still had a


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great many sonnets to write.The collector belongs to the school

of Petrarch.For one, love was only a pretext

for sonnets ; for the other, the beset-ting passion is a pretext for explora-tions. When the collector has no-thing more to seek, nothing more todiscover, he will be like the insectthathas spun its cocoon, growing dulland stupid in idleness and ennui.Only, in this particular case, the in-

sect has better sense than the man ; itchanges to a butterfly, the man to agrub.


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YTHE COLLECTOR OF OLD BOOKS

TDERMIT me now to leave gen-eralities and to complete this

monograph by sketching, in broadlines, an individual of the genus.

I shall select my individual amongthe class of specialists. He shall be abibliomaniac, if you please, and fur-thermore, a particular kind of abibliomaniac, a lover of old books,a bouquineur.The bouquineur is distinquished


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from others of his genus by pecuHartraits.Thus, while other bibUomaniacs

will hunt their game almost any-where, in book-shops, at public sales,sometimes in the libraries of theirfriends, you w^ill never find a bouqui-neur rummaging anywhere except insome little comer display, in the dustyboxes that encumber wharfs andbridges, in the heaps of scrap-ironsold by the Auvergnats, in the w^astepaper under some butcher's or tobac-conist's counter.You might think then that the bou-

quineur's finest treasures are moreoften found in the second-hand shopthan at the regular dealer's ?Quite the contrary.Is it economy, then, or lack of


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money that forces the old book loversto exert themselves thus ?Not in the least ; I know one who is

a lavish millionaire.You do not understand? Listen,

then, for now wê come to the point ofthe matter.The bouquineur has a peculiarity in

common wîth the wôman enceinte.Both have strange cravings, and inboth cases these cravings can be sat-isfied only under certain conditions.Thus, the wôman has an intense

desire for a bite of rabbit, but thisrabbit must be one with a white footit must have been killed in this certainfield and not in another ; in the morn-ing and not in the evening; in fairwêather and not in fog.The bouquineur is equally definite


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and exacting in his desires. He longsfor a certain old book, but it must behedged about by restrictions. Firstof all, it must be a renard. fThus you see that the importantpoint to the bouquineur is not somuch the old book itself as the man-ner of acquiring it.

It is no great trick to walk into awell-arranged shop, to look throughthe catalogue, choose an article, paythe marked price and then put thepurchase tranquilly in your packet.But to tramp the pavement of the

quays for a whole week, to search, toexplore, to ransack a hundred musty,Nota : Renard is the term applied to a rare

and curious book unearthed by a collector inthe display of a second-hand dealer, who doesnot know the value of the book.


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dirty boxes ; then finally in a jumbleof worn, torn, stained, broken-backedtrash, to feel thrilling under yourfingers some little typographicaljewel unappreciated by the bumpkinAivho has shamelessly prostituted it,that is what may be called a streakof fortune, a triumph.It is not surprising, then, that in

order to gain such delights, the bou-quineur truly worthy of the namebraves all public opinion and exposeshimself w^ith equal indifference to theraillery of men as well as to theinclemencies of the sky. I have seenone of them standing for a wholehour under shelter of a carriage-w^ay,in a murderous draught, waiting fora ray of sun to come out and permita neighboring second-hand man to


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re-open his boxes which a double oil-cloth was protecting from the rain.

All are capable of forgetting theirmost serious business, their mostsacred duties, the birth-day of theirwife, the baptism of their first bom,if they meet the seductions of a bookdisplay on their route.At the hospital of Dubois they tell

of a bouquinomaniac, bedridden andsick unto death, who profited by themomentary absence of his nurse toclothe himself hurriedly and rush tothe Quay Voltaire.Would you like to know, now^,

w^hat books are so madly pursued bybouquineurs ?Some collectors,the dilettanti of

the genus, seek editions that havebeen issued by celebrated typographi-


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cal presses, such as those of the Aldi,the Juntas, the Estiennes, the Mam-ert-Patissons, the Cramoisys, the El-zevirs.Others run after treatises of some

special nature, such as the Manual ofthe Ablette-Fisber, Guide-book ofJus-tices of the Peace, The Art of RaisingGlow-Worms.Others again buy up indiscrimin-

ately all kinds of works of which thesubjects seem curious or unusual.Here are some sample titles which

seem to be specially tempting to thislast class of collectorsThe Palm-Tree of the Oases, fol-

lowed by the Art of IdentifyingDates.Considerations ofthe Causes of the

Rise and Fall of the Limoges Marine.


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The Inffuence of Military Music onthe Moral Sense of Wool-Bearing Ani-mals.Comparative Study ofIdiomsofthe

Comanche Indians and the Dialect ofthe Cbaillotians.From all the foregoing it would be

natural to conclude that the bouqui-neur is a profound student, given toscholarly research in the specialty towhich he denotes himself.A grave mistake.The bouquineur is outdone in ignor-

ance only by the school-master andthe carp.He possesses thousands of books,

but he would rather die of thirstsaid to be the most cruel of all deathsthan be condemned to read a singleone of his books.


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Why, then, does he heap up thesemountains ofpaper?No one has ever been able to find

out.


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Judicis, Louis - Le Collectionneur. a Collector's Portrait (1903)

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