Prior to 1692 the French national library was closed to the public; “even a scholar of the eminence of Isaac Vossius could only gain admittance through influence at court.” This all changed when a curious appointment was made. For a significant part of the reign of Louis XIV, François Michel Le Tellier, Marquis de Louvois, was Secretary of State for War. In the last decades of his life he was the most powerful of the king’s ministers. In 1684 Louvois purchased the office of Royal Librarian for his fourth son, as a ninth-birthday present. The incumbent librarians and their agents were
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