Nicolas Foucquet’s Library at Saint-Mandé.

The beginnings of Nicolas Foucquet’s library can be traced to the books he had inherited from his father, from whom he also inherited his love of books and learning. To these, he added his own volumes acquired from specialist dealers as well as the collections of other bibliophiles as they became available.

As his collection rapidly grew, Foucquet needed a permanent place in which to house and display them, and so a special place was set aside at his home at Saint-Mandé, just outside Paris. The library at Saint-Mandé was famous for its beauty and its splendour, but also the diversity of the books it held. It was estimated that there were some 27,000 volumes in all, of which 7,000 were in-folio, 8,000 in 8o and more than 12,000 in-4o.

There were printed books as well as manuscripts. Qur’ans, Talmuds and old Bibles in various languages, including one called the biblia maxima in eighteen volumes, and theological treatises. Among the secular books were history and geography, Foucquet’s favourite subjects, as well as works on military strategy, philosophy, natural history, mathematics, beaux-arts, music, architecture and fortifications. Other treatises included works on Leonardo da Vinci, Lomazzo, Jean Cousin and Salomon de Caus.

Foucquet did not collect books for their own sake; his collection was intended to be used. It was made available to scholars, who were invited to come in and make use of the library, where they would also find a cabinet of medals, boxes of stamps and dies, and two large globes, one celestial, the other terrestrial, both of which Foucquet also inherited from his father.

Foucquet, a man of intellect, enjoyed reading his books and looked forward to being able to spend more time in his library when he retired from public life. Tragically, during his early years in prison, he was allowed access to only one book at a time. These were obtained especially for him and, before they were handed to him, were inspected to ensure no messages had been tucked inside. Once he had read the book, Foucquet would return it, and it would again be searched for any secret messages he might have tried to hide inside. In time, these security measures would be relaxed, and he would be allowed several books at any one time. He would amass a small collection, which he used to teach his valets to read and write. Eventually given his own writing materials, Foucquet left a number of prison writings.

This reproduction of Foucquet’s library at Saint-Mandé: Franck Devedjian
(https://commons.wikimedia.org/.../File:Biblioth%C3%A8que...).