The Heures à lusaige de Romme (cat. p. 238) and the Discours sur les principes de la chiromance have two bindings made in Paris by the Rocolet atelier with the arms of Pierre Séguier. Séguier, Duc de Villemor, was born in Paris on 28 May 1588 and died in Saint-Germainen- Laye on 28 January 1672. He was educated at what is now the Prytanée National Militaire de la Flèche. He came from a prominent legal family. His father, Jean Séguier, seigneur d’Autry (d. 1596) was civil lieutenant of Paris. Pierre was brought up by his uncle, Antoine, président à mortier to the Parlement. Pierre became maître des requêtes in the Conseil d’État in 1620, from 1621-24 he was Intendent of Guyenne, and in 1624 he succeeded his uncle’s charge in the Parlement. In 1633 he became Keeper of the Seals under Richelieu whose nephew, Pierre Cesar du Cambout, Pierre Séguier’s daughter married in 1635. In the same year Pierre became Chancellor of France. He was awarded the Ordre de Saint Esprit in 1640 and the arms tooled on the Heures à lusiage de Romme (cat. p. 238) are surrounded by the chain of this order. He worked for and with Richelieu and after the death of both Richelieu and Louis XIII, Pierre became the faithful servant of Anne of Austria and Mazarin. He was hated by the political rebels known as the Frondeurs. In 1648 he was to regulate the proceedings of the Parlement, made concessions to the Fronde (1650) and was dismissed as Keeper of the Seals. Pierre was recalled to Paris in 1651, dismissed six months later, but in 1656 the Seals were returned to him. He became President of the Royal Council and in 1666 was appointed head of a commission to simplify the police organisation and drew up an ordinance for better administration of justice.¹ 

He was a man of great learning and a patron of literature. In December 1642 he succeeded Richelieu as “protector” of the Académie française. He amassed a valuable library, containing about 4,000 manuscripts, most important of which were the Greek manuscripts. Pierre’s grandson, Charles du Cambout Coislin, Bishop of Metz, commissioned Bernard de Montfaucon to catalogue the Greek manuscripts; this was published in 1715 as the Bibliotheca Coisliniana, olim Segueriana. At his death, Pierre’s library consisted of about 34,000 volumes. Many works were dedicated or presented to him and were often richly bound. After the death of his wife in 1683 his library was dispersed. The printed books ended up in various sales in 1686. The manuscripts were inherited by the Duc de Coislin, who left them in 1731 to the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. In 1794 the library of the Abbey was seized and many of Séguier’s books are now in the Bibliothèque nationale de France. A catalogue of his books was published in Paris by A. Cramoisy in 1685. 

Marin Cureau de La Chambre, the author of the second book described above, was the personal physician of Pierre Séguier from 1634 until his death. He was in the habit of giving presentation copies of his numerous books, not only to Séguier, but to Anne of Austria and King Louis XIV, and had these bound in the atelier that worked for the printer and bookseller Pierre Rocolet from c. 1638 till 1662. The bindings of these presentation copies fall into two periods, one dating around 1645, the other during the Fronde, c. 1650.² Pierre Rocolet was a printer and bookdealer, 1618-62. He was not himself a binder, but frequently patronised the same atelier.³ 

A third book in the Cerruti Collection, H. C. Davila, Histoire des guerres civiles de France, P. Rocolet, Paris 1644 (see no. 27, p. 333), is dedicated to Pierre Séguier and bound c. 1645, probably also by the atelier “Rocolet”, in red goatskin with brown onlays, tooled in gold to a panel design with masses of pointillé tools. The binding has the monogram “PMSF” which was used by Séguier. The central pale-brown onlay was probably added later. It has the arms of an ecclesiastical member of the Valbelle de Tourves family, but the three bishops of this family who used this coat of arms all date from the 18th century.⁴ Another copy of the same book, bound by the same atelier and decorated to the same design with identical tools, but with the arms and cypher of Anne of Austria, was sold in the second Esmerian Sale in Paris (8 December 1972, lot 33). 

Mirjam Foot

¹ Hobson A. 1953, p. XX.

² Conihout, Ract-Madoux 2002, nos. 14, 15, 18, 23.

³ Paris (Palais Galliera), Bibliothèque Raphaël Esmerian, 8 December 1972, II, lots 32, 33, 35.

⁴ The book is not listed in the 1685 Paris catalogue of Séguier’s books.