WIDENER LIBRARY PURCHASES SOME 30,000 FRENCH VOLUMES

The Widener Memorial Library has just recently received 75 packing cases from Paris containing some 30,000 books and pamphlets, purchased on February 1 by an exchange of cablegrams between a Paris agent of the Library and the authorities. It was the library of an owner whose change of residence led to the acceptance of an offer.

These books were gathered largely by Cte. Alfred Boulay de la Meurthe, the historian of the Concordat of 1801. He inherited the collection of his grandfather, who as Minister of Justice under the first Napoleon was in a position to accumulate many important official and unofficial publications. The grandson's interest in the Revolutionary period expanded to include almost everything concerning the relations of church and state in France during the nineteenth century.

The value of this acquisition cannot easily be exaggerated. It is said that a preliminary examination of the contents of the cases which have been opened leaves no doubt that this purchase is the most important single one made on behalf of the Library since that of Count Riant's collection of books on the Near East in 1899.