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178 such collections to the public depositories of the neighboring towns, the libraries of Avranches, Alençon, and Rouen, reënforced by the Bibliothèque Nationale, have garnered but a small part of the ancient treasures of Mont-Saint-Michel, Saint-Évroul, and the establishments of the lower Seine. Works of importance as well as curiosities still survive—autograph corrections of Lanfranc, the originals of the great histories of Robert of Torigni and Ordericus Vitalis, service-books throwing light on the origins of the liturgical drama, cartularies of churches and abbeys,—but for a more comprehensive view of the resources of the twelfth century we must turn to the contemporary catalogues which have come down to us from the cloisters of Saint-Évroul, Bec, Lire, and Fécamp, and the cathedral of Rouen. After all, as that delightful academician Silvestre Bonnard has reminded us, there is no reading so easy, so restful, or so seductive as a catalogue of manuscripts; and there is no better guide to the silence and the peace of the monastic library, as one may still taste them in the quiet of the Escorial or Monte Cassino. Let us take the most specific example, the collection of one hundred and forty volumes bequeathed to Bec by Philip, bishop of Bayeux, at his death in 1164, or rather the one hundred and thirteen which reached the monastery, twenty-seven having fallen by the way and being hence omitted from the catalogue. Like the other libraries of the time, this consisted chiefly of theology—the writings of the Fathers