for the study of мss, when, at the age of thirty-two, he was invited by Luc d'Achery (1609--1685), the editor of the thirteen volumes of the Veterum aliquot Scriptorum Spicilegium, to take part in the learned labours of the Benedictines at the abbey of Saint-Germaindes-Prés in the south of Paris.

The earliest home of the Benedictine Order in France was the monastery of Saint-Maur on the Loire, founded by St Benedict's favourite pupil, St Maur. The Order had been reformed in Lorraine and elsewhere by Didier de la Cour in 1613-8, and this reform had been taken up by Tarisse, who in 1630-48 presided over the 'Congregation of Saint-Maur', with its head-quarters at the ancient abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, which continued to be a famous centre of religious learning until its suppression in 17921.

Mabillon was a member of this abbey for 43 years from the date of his entering it at the age of thirty-two to his death at the age of seventy-five. During the many years of his residence within its walls, the abbey was the resort of the foremost representatives of the learned world in Paris, including classical scholars such as Du Cange and Valesius. In less than three years after his admission, he produced the two folio volumes of his edition of St Bernard, a work in which he proved himself a sound critic, an able expositor, and the master of a pure and lucid Latin style. In the following year he published the first volume of his Acta Sanctorum Ordinis Sancti Benedicti, a historic work of the highest order, which was characterised throughout by a never-failing love of truth. The quest of mahuscript materials for the composition of this and other learned works led to his visiting the monasteries of Flanders, Lorraine, Burgundy, Normandy, and Alsace. In the course of these investigations he produced his third great work, the folio volume of 635 pages, De Re Diplomatica (1681). The authority of the charters of Saint-Denis had been attacked, and the general object of the treatise was to set forth the proper method of determining the date and genuineness of ancient documents. A spirit of charity and candour is conspicuous in the preface; the work itself includes numerous facsimiles from charters and other ancient MSS, and it ends with a special tribute of thanks to the learned Du

1 Cp. Vanel, Les Bénédictins de Saint-Maur à Saint-Germain-des-Prés 1630-1792 (1896).

Cange. Its publication was welcomed as an important event by the world of scholars throughout Europe. After its publication the king desired to see the author, who was accordingly presented by Le Tellier, the archbishop of Reims, and by his rival, Bossuet, bishop of Meaux. In introducing Mabillon, Le Tellier said :'Sire, I have the honour of presenting to your Majesty the most learned man in your realm'. Bossuet, regarding this as a reflexion on his own learning, quietly suppressed the proud archbishop by adding:-'and the most humble'. Even in recent times the value of the treatise has been recognised by M. Léopold Delisle, who says of Mabillon :

The most illustrious of the pupils of Luc d'Achery added much to the collections of his master; above all he devoted himself to the task of dissipating the darkness that enveloped the historical documents of the Middle Ages, and, in his immortal treatise De Re Diplomatica, laid down the rules that have resisted the most vigorous attacks, rules whose truth has been confirmed by the most modern investigations'.

The work was dedicated to Louis XIV's great minister, Colbert. In the following year Colbert invited Mabillon to examine, in the archives of Burgundy, the documents relating to the reigning house, and afterwards sent him to the libraries of Germany at the royal expense.

The time was not entirely favourable for a tour in Germany. The Germans had been exasperated by the sudden capture of Strassburg by the French (1681), and Vienna was being threatened by the Turks (1683). But the tour was accomplished with very little inconvenience in the happy companionship of Michel Germain, the devoted friend of Mabillon. It extended over parts of Bavaria, Switzerland, and the Tyrol, and included visits to Luxeuil, Bâle, Einsiedeln, St Gallen, Augsburg, Ratisbon, Salzburg, Munich, Innspruck, Constance, Reichenau, Freiburg and Strassburg. At the prompting of Mabillon, the manuscript Chronicle of Trithemius was printed in the abbey of St Gallen. Some Greek Mss had been noticed at Augsburg, and Mss of Virgil at Reichenau; and a collection of Roman inscriptions, unknown to Gruter, had been discovered. The journey lasted from January to October 1683, and was recorded in the Iter Germanicum, in the last of the four volumes of the Analecta (1685).

A similar journey in Italy was taken at the king's charges by the same two monks. It lasted from April 1685 to June 1686, including a month at Milan, eleven days in Venice, seven months in Rome, one in Naples, ten days at

1 Cabinet des MSS, 1874, ii 63.

Monte Cassino, and three at Bobbio, and more than one visit to Florence. At Florence they were greatly aided by the ducal librarian, Magliabecchi, whom Mabillon describes as a 'walking museum and a living library'; at Rome, they were shown all the objects of antiquarian interest by the eminent archaeologist, Fabretti. Among the numerous Mss, which they acquired in Italy for the royal library in Paris, was a fine copy of Ammianus Marcellinus. The tour was described under the title of the Iter Italicum in the first part of the first of the two quarto volumes of the Museum Italicum (1687).

But

Mabillon was subsequently invited to draw up a scheme of study for persons leading a monastic life. This was published in 1691, and was received with applause by the learned world. it brought him into controversy with the Abbé Armand de Rancé, who had renounced all his preferments except the small priory of La Trappe (near Mortagne), where he founded a reformed community consisting of members of the Cistercian Order. In 1683 he produced his treatise, Les Devoirs de la Vie Monastique, permitting the monks no other employment than that of prayer, the chanting of the psalms, and manual labour, and enjoining perpetual silence and abstinence from study. Mabillon's lively friend, Michel Germain, indignantly exclaimed:-'he would condemn us to the spade and the plough!" De Rancé's views reappeared in a modified form in his Éclaircissements. On the publication of Mabillon's Traité des Études Monastiques, de Rancé regarded it as a direct attack on his own principles, although his name was nowhere mentioned. The Abbé published a Réponse (1692), and in the same year was answered by Mabillon in his Réflexions. The controversy excited the keenest interest among scholars. On the publication of the Traité, Mabillon received a letter from Huet, congratulating him on his endeavour to disabuse the minds of those who had been led to believe that ignorance was a necessary qualification for a good monk'. The controversialists were finally reconciled by the Christian charity exhibited by Mabillon in an interview with the Abbé de Rancé, which was brought about by the latter's friend, the widowed Duchesse de Guise. In 1701 the 'Academy of Inscriptions' was founded by Colbert, not with a view to the study of ancient inscriptions, but

1 Valéry, Correspondance, ii 329.

2

13 Aug. 1691 (Valéry, i 320). Cp., in general, Maitland's Dark Ages, 161-5 (ed. 1844).

primarily for the composition of appropriate mottoes for the medals struck in honour of the exploits of Louis XIV. This Academy soon became the centre of the study of language and history in France. By the royal command Mabillon was nominated one of the original members. Two years later he produced the first of the four folio volumes of the 'Annals' of the Benedictine Order, which occupied his attention until his death in 1707. In all his scholarly investigations he was inspired by a perfect charity, and an unfailing honesty of purpose. The guiding principle of his life may be found in the motto prefixed to the particular work which, among all his learned labours, has the closest connexion with scholarship: scientia veri justique vindex1. His devoted friend, Thierry Ruinart, spent two years in collecting his papers and in writing his life. In 1819 his remains found their final restingplace in the second chapel to the right, as one enters the choir of the ancient abbey church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. The inscription runs as follows:

'Memoriae D. Ioannis Mabillon, Presbyteri, Monachi Ordinis S. Benedicti, Academiae Inscriptionum Humaniorumque Litterarum Socii, pietate doctrina modestia elapso iam saeculo clari, bibliothecarum tum nostratium tum exterarum diligentissimi indagatoris, in diplomatum sinceritate dijudicanda facile principis, Actorum Annaliumque Ordinis sui collectoris conditoris "*. The other tablets of the same date in the same chapel are in honour of Descartes, and of Mabillon's great successor among the scholars of the Benedictine Order, Bernard Montfaucon. Montfaucon belongs to the next generation and is therefore reserved for a subsequent chapter. Meanwhile, the Jesuit Jean Hardouin of Quimper (1646-1729) may here be mentioned as the editor of the Delphin edition of the elder Pliny (1685), and as the author of works on numismatics (1684 and 1693), who paradoxically maintained that almost all the ancient Classics were spurious products of the thirteenth century. He made an exception in favour of the Georgics of Virgil, the Satires

Hardouin

1 De Re Diplomatica, 1681; cp. Jadart, 89.

2 On Mabillon cp., in general, Ruinart (1709), Chavin de Meulan (1843), Valéry, Correspondance Inédite (1847), and esp. the works of H. Jadart (Reims, 1879), E. de Broglie, 2 vols. (1888); and S. Bäumer, Johannes Mabillon, ein Lebens- und Literaturbild (Augsburg, 1892).

and Epistles of Horace, with Cicero and the elder Pliny, and to these he was disposed to add Homer, Herodotus and Plautus. Thus he held that the Odes of Horace and the Aeneid of Virgil were written in the middle ages, an opinion that prompted his younger contemporary Boileau to remark that, although he had no love for the monks, he would not have been sorry to live with 'Frère Horace' or 'Dom Virgile'. Jacob Vernet of Geneva hit off his character in the following epitaph :-'in expectatione judicii hic jacet hominum paradoxotatus..., credulitate puer, audacia juvenis, deliriis senex'1.

Spon (and

Wheler)

Classical archaeology owed much to his short-lived contemporary, Jacques Spon of Lyon (1647-1685), who travelled with George Wheler in Greece and the Levant (1675-6), collecting coins and MSS and antique marbles. Drawings of the sculptures of the Parthenon were made in 1674, thirteen years before it was reduced to ruin during the Venetian siege of 1687'. These drawings were formerly ascribed to the French artist, Carrey, but were probably produced by one of the two Flemish artists who accompanied the Marquis de Nointel3.

1 E. de Broglie, Mabillon, i 105; borrowed partly from Ménage, Vita Gargilii Mamurrae, in Misc. 1652.

2 Stark, 137 f; Michaelis, Parthenon, 62 l, 95f, 345 f; Omont, Athènes au xviï siècle (1898), pl. i—xix; Springer-Michaelis, Kunstgeschichte, ed. 7, fig. 44. 3 Omont, 4 f.