Seeing a rhinoceros in Angers: Manuscript account book with stationer’s label.
[Anonymous]. [Account book from Angers.] Angers: Dubois-Canon (stationer for blank book), [c. 1822]. 4to-size laid-paper notebook [18.8 x 15.3 cm], [35] ff. manuscript, [49] pp. blank. Original stationer’s blank book quarter bound in re-used vellum and mottled pasteboards, red edges, remnants of ties, stationer’s label used for the front pastedown, shelfmark in ink on spine, pasteboards scuffed and with some edge wear. Manuscript leaves ruled in pencil, written in ink, legible throughout, the first few leaves missing, the occasional stain.
Unusual personal account book of a citizen of Angers recording expenses incurred from January 1823 to July 1828, not only in Angers proper but also on sojourns to Paris, Versailles, Amiens, La Roche and elsewhere. The notebook preserves inside its front cover the elaborate full-page printed label (hitherto unrecorded) of the stationer who made it, a certain Dubois-Canon (“Dubois-Canon, Rue Saint-Laud, No. 23, en face de la rue de la Roë; maison qui fait le coin de la rue des Forges”), who advertises the several dozen items and services provided in his shop, including various types of papers, pencils, pens, brushes, inks, paints, erasers, etc., for writing, drafting music, drawing, painting (watercolor, miniature, etc.), as well as compasses, mathematical instruments, “old parchments and papers,” and, of course, blank books, all “at a fair price.”
The writer of the account book did not leave his name, but his identity might be discovered through research into the details of his expenses. Many entries are for quotidian items and services, e.g., transportation, foodstuff (chocolate, tea, tobacco, coffee, beer, rum, wines and cheeses of various sorts), restaurants, clothing and household items for himself. Scores of entries relate to purchases for “Mes filles,” named Dolly and Claire, who had an insatiable need for clothing, accessories and bibelots (hats, ribbons, baleen corsets, dresses, parasols, gloves, etc., etc.). Names of merchants and shopkeepers are provided. The writer regularly subscribed to the Angers reading room (“Abonnement au Salon de lecture”). Intriguingly, on 7 February 1823 he spent 3 francs in Angers “to see a rhinoceros” (“p.r voir un Rhinoceros”). He often spent on paper for pastels, paints, brushes, ivory for miniatures, drawing lessons, etc., sometimes at the shop of Dubois-Canon. When in Paris, he recorded visits to Musée du Louvre (5 fr.), Les Invalides, “la bibliotheque,” a diorama, etc. At Versailles he saw the famed Droz automata (“p.r voir automates de Droz 18 fr.”). Repeat visits to the Paris suburb of Charenton-le-Pont suggests family there or perhaps a link to its renowned psychiatric hospital.
The account book is written in an uncertain, wavy hand that likely indicates that the writer suffered from an essential tremor, a characteristic most famously seen in the 13th-century glossator of Old English manuscripts known as the Tremulous Hand of Worcester.
In constructing this blank book, Dubois-Canon sewed his printed advertisement into the bookblock for use as the front pastedown (it is not merely cut out and affixed to the inside of the cover). This represents a very early instance of sewing in pre-printed leaves as endleaves. (I thank Nicholas Pickwoad for this observation.)
*C. Ramsden, French Bookbinders, 1789-1848, p. 75 (for Dubois-Canon).