Barthelemy Mercier of Saint-Leger

Biography

Its taste for the study, which developed early, determined its vocation for the cloister. It entered in 1749 the congregation of the regular canons of Holy-Genevieve, and, after one year of test, pronounced its wishes. It was sent at once by its superiors to the Abbaye of Chatrices, in Champagne, to make there a course of rhetoric and philosophy. The holder of the abbey, Jean de Caulet, dead bishop of Grenoble, guessed the happy provisions of the young Draper and rained himself to cultivate them.

Of return to Paris in 1754, it stuck to Pingré, librarian of Holy-Genevieve, benefitted from her councils and became his/her collaborator. It succeeded to him in 1760 as librarian, and fulfills this function during twelve years with an untiring zeal. Having drawn the attention of Louis XV, at the time of a visit that this monarch made with the library, it was provided, some time after (1764), of the Abbaye of Saint-Leger of Soissons, and the patent which him was dispatched by it carries that it is in reward of the services that it had returned to the letters.

Some annoyances which it had to wipe on behalf of its fellow-members decided it to give in 1772 its resignation of the place of librarian and to take a separate housing. It was yet known only by some rather curious articles inserted in the newspapers, and especially by its contentions with Guillaume-François Debure, author of the instructive Bibliographie . It published in 1773 the Supplément with the History of printing works , by Prosper Marchand: this work is undoubtedly not free from errors, but it does not reveal of it less one scholarship and of extraordinary research. It benefitted from its leisures to traverse the Netherlands and the Holland, where it was accommodated with much eagerness by Meerman, Crevenna, etc It paid of its voyage of new notes and a great number of rare extracts of books.

Chaplain of the Large Fauconnerie de France, prior of Saint-Pierre of Montlucon, it lost his benefit with the French revolution. As he had never thought of making economies, he fell into a state quite close to indigence. He then took a modest housing in the Faubourg Saint-Jacob, and delivered himself with more heat than ever to the study, to distract itself from the events which occurred around him.

Named in 1792 Member of the Commission of the monuments, it especially endeavoured to save the libraries, and addressed instructions to the librarians of the departments on the mode of classification of the invaluable deposits given to their monitoring. He sought to be opposed to the Vandalisme and the dispersion of the public collections or private.

The commission was removed at the end of a few months, and Draper gained in his retirement, a disastrous impression of the dreadful scenes of which he had been the involuntary witness; they were recalled unceasingly with its imagination and froze it horror. The meeting, which it made, at some time from there, of one of his/her friends, confused with a crowd of others, one of these tanks which led each day of new victims to the scaffold, struck it of a mortal blow. As of this moment it did nothing but languish and did not leave any more. The need would have besieged its last days without the support of some friends of the letters.

Serna Santander, librarian with Brussels, offered to yield its place to him but François de Neufchâteau, then Minister of Interior Department, refused the generous offer of Santander, and made grant to Mercier a pension of two thousand four hundred francs, whose one paid him the first term in advance. Draper died in Paris the May 13rd 1799, at the 65 years age.

He collaborated in the Journal of Trévoux of which he was the director of October 1764 at June 1766, to the literary Year , with the Journal of Bubble , with the Journal of the Scientists and with the encyclopedic Magasin .

He was one of the principal writers (with François-Louis Claude Marin, the abbot Jean-Augustin Capperonnier and the abbot P. - J. Boudot) of the Bibliothèque of the Th3e4atre Fran1cais (1768, 3 vol. in-12) published under the direction of Louis César of the Balsam the White, duke of Vallière.

Publications

Letters on the instructive Bibliography of Mr. Debure , 1763;
Letter of Mr. Mercier,… with Mr. Capperonnier,… on the approval given to the second volume of the ″ instructive Bibliography ″ , September 12th 1764;
Note of the entitled book: ″ Morumque Reformatorium vitae and honestatis clericorum ″ (of Jacques Philippi, priest of St-Pierre, in Basle), printed in Basle, at Michel Furter, under the false one gone back to 1444 , 1764;
Letter on a New portable historical Dictionary which is printed in Avignon , 1766 (critical examination of the dictionary of Chaudon);
Supplement with the History of the printing works of Commercial Prosper , Paris, 1772, in-4°; new edition, corrected and increased, 1775, in-4°;
Consultations for the secular priests provided with the cures of Saint-Etienne-of-Mount and Saint M3edard's Day… dependant on the royal abbey on Holy Genevieve… on the question of knowing: 1 ̊ if the monks of Holy Genevieve are or is not regular canons? 2 ̊ if they are or if they are not able to have cures? , 1772;
Letter of Mr. a. of S.L. to the author of the literary Year , by sending to him the note of a rare book entitled: ″ The Skin-of-ox ″ , December 14th 1775;
New critical remarks on the first two volumes of the ″ general Library of the writers about S. Benoît ″ , 1778;
Observations on the letter of Mr. J.G ***, inserted in ″ the Spirit of the newspapers ″ of the month of last June, with a note of some editions made in Bruges, by Colard Mansion, during XVe century , August 26th 1779;
Counterpart of Mr. the abbot Mr. ***, with the Answer of the one of the 36, addressed to the authors of the ″ Newspaper of Paris ″ , October 8th 1781;
Letters with the baron of H on the various rare editions of the 15th century , Paris, 1783
Description of a new press carried out for the service of the King and published by order of the government , 1783;
Extracts from a manuscript entitled: ″ The Book of the very chevalereux count d' Artois and his wife, girl of the count de Boulogne ″ , inserted in the Library of the novels , 1783;
Note reasoned of the works of Gaspar Schott, Jesuit, container of the curious observations on experimental physics, natural history and arts , Paris, 1785, in-8°.
literary Characteristics on the liturgy mosarabe drawn from the handwritten letters of the P. Burriel , September 26th 1786;
Letter with a friend on the suppression of the load of librarian of the King, and on a means of compensating for it, as economic as advantageous with the letters , 1787;
Note of the original book of the nobility assembled in Orleans for the General states of 1614; addressed to the writers of the " Analyzes papers anglais" , July 10th 1788;
Lettre of Mr. A ***, trader of Rouen, in Dom A ***, monk of the Congregation of Saint-Maur, on the decree project concerning the monks, proposed with the National Assembly by Mr. Treilhard , 1789;
Letter with the editor of the Treaty of the currencies of the prelates and barons de France (Tobiesen Duby), in the Newspaper of the scientists , 1789
Memory for the conservation of the libraries of the secular and regular communities of Paris , 1790, in-8°;
Note of two old catalogs of the editions of Alde Manuce and two other interesting coins, printed by this famous artist, addressed to authors of the ″ Newspaper of the sçavans ″ , March 29th 1790, in-12;
Project for the establishment of a National library in five sections, placed in as many districts of Paris , February 15th 1791;
Quinque illustrium poetarum : Ant. Panormitae, Ramusii Ariminensis, Pacifici Maximi,… Joan. Joviani,… Joan. Secundi,… lusus in Venerem, partim ex codicibus manuscriptis, nunc primum editi , 1791;
Opinion on alleged prophecies which one applies to the events present , ibid, 1791;
Note on the specimen acquired recently by the Mazarine Library of Acerba de Cecco d' Ascoli, second edition of 1478 , 26 germinal year VI;
Letter of M *** to the authors of the ″ Memories for the history of sciences and fine arts ″, concerning the new writings on the true author of the ″ political Legacy ″ of the cardinal of Richelieu , slnd;
Letter of Mr. Mercier, abbot of St Leger… to authors of the ″ Newspaper of the sçavants ″ container various critical remarks on its ″ Supplement with the history of the printing works of P. Marchand ″ , slnd;
Letter of Mr. Mercier librarian of Holy Genevieve with Mr Capperonnier , slnd;
Note of the transferred tombs and others monumens, in September 1783, of the church of Holy-Catherine of the Seam in that of Saint-Louis, street Saint-Anthony, preceded by the nomenclature of the principal characters buried in this church , slnd;
different Opuscules which one will find the titles in the literary France of Ersch and in the Dictionnaire of the anonymities , by Barbier

Draper with left Notes on the works of Monnoye, the Memories of Jean-Pierre Niceron, the Library of David Clément, the Bibliography of Debure, the literary Evenings of Cut, the Biblioth. mediœ and infinite, latinitatis of Johann Albert Fabricius, the Libraries of the Cross of Maine and of Antoine of Verdier, etc, and two volumes of Notes on the Latin poets of the Middle Ages, until the year 1520 . Mr. Parison promised to publish, under the title of Merceriana , the detached notes found in papers of Draper; and Chardon of Rochette ensures that it had been, after the Menagiana , the collection most curious about this kind.

References

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