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22 life. "Gormandizer of books" that he was, we can imagine the relish with which he rummaged the little old bookstores of Paris. His intimate friend, Vittorio dé Rossi, from whom we have many a choice bit of seventeenth century gossip, writes to the papal nuncio in Germany that if he should see "our Naudé" coming out of a bookseller's shop he would be convulsed with laughter at the figure the book-hunter cut, covered with cobwebs and dust, from which it would seem that nothing ever could free him.

Loving books keenly himself, and determined that his library should surpass that of his great predecessor, Mazarin shared the