Cheyenne transporter. [volume] (Darlington, Indian Terr.) 1879-1886, 1884-12-05
"BIBLlOPHILE JACOB"
Death of Famous Frenchman Of the Genera
ton of Victor Hugo.

All lovers OF good books, especially
of good old books, and all lovers of
Moliere, are in mourning to-day, says
The Lonion Standard The father of
them all is dead, the famous "Biblio-
phile Jacob" as he called himself,
NJ. Paul Lacroix. The good bibliophile
had reached patriarchal age; he was
of Victor HugO's generation; he was
one of those who fought under the
banner of Hermann, and entered litera-
ture with Alfred de Musset, Sainte
Beuve, and the author of Lies Miscr-
ables.' They are almost all gone now,
all but the master of them all, the I'M
mortal Victor Hugo. The bibliophile,
of course, did not in any way enter
into rivalry with the master. If ever
he wrote poetry, which we doubt, it
has passed beyond the memory of
man, and disappeared among the
withered romantic leaves, only known
to collectors. Though his genius by
no means lay in that direction, the
bibliophile, when young man, wrote
II great many novels. Everyone was
much, inspired more or less by Scott,
and by general belief(to us a vulgar
ism) in the duty of making things
skip " Classicism was over, the reign
of passion at any price had come in,
and the bibliophile, too, went in for
passion. Romance, revel, the knightly
wooer, the fair frail chatelaine, the
ferocious and inopportune husband,
doublets, trunk hose, rapiers, con-
verts, testers, duels, vaults, graves,
and all the rest of the materials were
as much at the command of the bib
liophile az of his neighbors. He. too,
could write idyls of guillotined ladies
and dead donkeys-so, at least, SAYS
tradition, for only three words of the
bibliophle's novels can be said to sur
vive. These words are rOrgie echeUelee,
quoted by Theophile Gautier, and
those words are quite enough. The
rest can be taken rs read. Not fiction,
but erudition, photography, book col
lecting, and research were the forte
of the bibliophile. He well deserved
his name no one loved books better,
and wrote better about them. He
could not compete with Rothschilds
and the Leopold Doubles, Pixere-
courts, or even Charles Nodiers of this
world as a collector. He was not a
rich man, but he was always or the
spot, always had his eyes open, and
his sale will probably be among the
most interesting of our time. He once
picked up for few pence ii copy of
''Tartutfe," which perhaps had be-
lOnged to Louis XIV. himself. The
bibliophile was at the head of one of
the great public libraries of Paris,
the right man in the right place. His
most valuable books are doubtless
his photographic and monographs
of Moliere volumes of prodigious re-
search, full of every possible informa-
ton about all editions, translations,
criticisms, biographies, portraits, and
illustrations of the great commedian.
These books, of course, have no pop
ular interest, but they are delightful
to the lover of letters. AS a critic
and biographer the bibliophile was,
perhaps, trifle too ingenious, too
ready with his conjectures, always
clever, but now and then disproved
by time and by later discoveries. But
hypothesis has its value and use in
literary as in scientific research. The
most generally pleaseing of the bib
liophile's works are probably his great
and richly-illustrated books on the
ARTS of the Middle Ages" Better
reading for the right class of students,
was provided in his gossipping papers
of anecdote about books and men.
These he scattered in magazines, in
the prefaces of catalogues and in
other more or less obscure places. A
collected volume would find it's own
fit public among those who liked to
hear the ancient mans memories, and
to revere that patriarch of hard litera-
ry labor. The longer he lived, the
better he seemed to write about we'll