Fonds Médard

Protestant born in a middle-class family of traders, Louis Médard is at the head of a trading firm of cotton material and of soft furnishings. Withdrawing from buisness in 1821,he dedicates the last 30 years of his life to the edification of his collection he had started when he was young.

He is a well informed booklover councelled by publishers, booksellers or parisian binders, he chooses copies for their rarity or their bibliophilic quality. You may find manuscripts of the middle age, among which the Psalter of Gellone (Saint-Guilhem du Désert) made in England around the middle of the XIIth century; a copy on large paper of l’Histoire naturelle des oiseaux from Buffon. (The Médard Collection is the only public library to show this complete copy with its' 1008 watercoloured hand engravings) ; the Fables of La Fontaine in the Fermiers Généraux edition , illustrated by Oudry ; a Copy of the 1791 Constitution who belonged to Louis theXVIth...

Louis Médard had the greatest bookbinders of his time working for him, it happened to be the Golden Age of french binding. Let us name here, Cimier, "the king of bookbinders", Thouvenin, Bozerian, Bauzonnet.

In 1865, his "cabinet" was recreated in a room of the town hall, a XVIIIth century building, today housing the municipal library, and now opened to public.

Pieces of furnisher, of which his desk, his tower clock, lamps, a few paintings but most of all his books in showcases, nothing has been touched...or then only to have them preserved.