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IV. 



ELIAS BOUHEREAU OF LA EOCHELLE, FIEST PUBLIC 

 LIBEARIAN IN lEELAND. 



By NEWPOET J. D. WHITE, D.D., M.E.I.A., 



Canon of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin ; Professor of Biblical Greek in the 

 University of Dublin ; and Keeper of Marsh's Library. 



Eead November 11. Ordered for Publication December 11, 1907. 

 Published February 5, 1908. 



The moving cause of this paper is to be found in the restoration to Marsh's 

 Library of a portion of the private correspondence of the first Library-keeper, 

 Elie Bouhereau; and its publication will be justified if it is the means of 

 calling the attention of historical students to the whereabouts of a mass of 

 original material for the social and general history of the Huguenots in and 

 near La Eochelle, from about 1660 to 1685. 



It is necessary here to anticipate a little, and explain how this 

 correspondence came originally to Marsh's Library, and by what means it 

 was subsequently lost. In the Calendar of Treasury Papers, January 22nd, 

 1708-9, there may be read an abstract of the petition of Dr. Elias Bouhereau — 

 a pathetic document to those who read with knowledge of the man and his 

 story — in which these words occur : — " Was a stranger, and left France for 

 his religion's sake, and brought over nothing with him but a numerous family 

 and his books, value 500/., which he gave to the library."^ 



Besides the printed books (considerably over 2000), in consideration of 

 which, as it was put, Bouhereau was made Library-keeper, he also deposited in 

 1714 in the library, for safe keeping, a strong box, the chief contents of 

 which were the archives of the French Protestant Church of La Eochelle. 

 The Governors of the Library then ordered " that they were to be kept until 

 such time as the same shall be demanded by the said Eeformed Church." 

 This entry in the Visitation Minute Book gives credence to a statement by 

 S. Smiles, in The Huguenots in England and Ireland (p. 367), that "when the 

 strong box was opened, a paper was found in it in the doctor's handwriting, 

 directing that, in the event of the Protestant Consistory at La Eochelle 



1 There was apparently a reservation in this gift; for Dr. Bouhereau left to his son John 

 " such of my Books as he will chuse for himself." It does not appear whether John availed 

 himself of this legacy or not, 



