Paper: Montaigne, Charp.

The Ranums' Panat Times

Montaigne's Choice of Paper

I was intrigued recently to note parallels between the observations of George Hoffman, Montaigne's Career (Oxford: Clarendon, 1998) and what I have observed and posited about Marc-Antoine Charpentier's use of leftover paper that were left-overs or whose watermark had a meaning (see my Vers un chronologie).

Hoffman points out that Montaigne bought the paper for his books and supplied it to his printer, Millanges (pp. 67-68). For example, the watermarks in Montaigne's Essais bear the image of a heart, while not a few of Millange's books are printed on a mixture of papers. "In fact," observes Hoffman, "if one studies the distribution of watermarks throughout Millange's printings, one discovers that each author uses his own type of paper. ... Even where the watermark is not identical throughout the book, the variants tend to remain within one family type, as do Montaigne's heart-shaped marks or Antoine du Ferrier's gloved-hand ones. Millanges, in contrast, did not as a rule use a single run of paper for his own books, but mixed remnants of the different types that these authors had previously used. Only when an outside author was involved does the paper appear to come from a specific mill, and this suggests — rather surprisingly — that the authors ordered their paper themselves." (pp. 70-71) In other words, the author supplied the paper (apparently purchasing it from a single supply source), and Millanges used that paper, and only that paper, for that specific book. But the printer apparently kept all or some of the left-over sheets, which he routinely combined with other left-overs to print his own books.

This practice parallels what I have asserted about Charpentier's autograph manuscripts. I have proposed — but with no documentation to prove my hypothesis — that quite a few of Charpentier's patrons supplied him with the paper on which he copied the score and part-books that he provided for the performance. And I have observed that the composer routinely used a mixture of different papers for his personal copy, and this mixture changed every six months or so. The only plausible explanation for this ever-changing array of papers is that Charpentier copied his so-called "Meslanges" onto left-over paper.

Hoffman also suspects that Montaigne selected one paper, rather than another, because the watermark had a meaning for him. "One might entertain for a moment the perhaps fanciful idea that Montaigne smiled to himself upon later remarking, in quite different contexts, that he preferred keeping his ‘heart open,' and that it it was too small, at least ‘it is open for its part, and it orders me to boldly publish its weakness.' That the paper of his book actually bore the faintly outlined diagram of a heart folded along the spine can of course suggest rich associations to a literary critic's imagination ...," writes Hoffman (p. 71).

I have, of course, argued that for more than 30 years, the watermarks in Charpentier's Meslanges point to his different patrons: the Jesuits (IHS), the Sainte-Chapelle (a crosier), the Dauphin (a crown or scepter), Colbert (his arms!).... That is not to say that Charpentier himself selected the paper: the Jesuits and Colbert almost certainly provided him with those sheets so intimately connected with them personally.

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