The Pulaski Citizen

A Curious Parisian Art.

A Paris paper states that in the French capital an industrial art is prosecuted, of the existence of which few persons have any knowledge whatsoever. This art consists in the restoration of old books and manuscripts, and has been raised by a few experts to a marvelous perfection. The skill of these artists is indeed so great that no book is considered by them to be beyond their transforming touch. They take out the most inveterate stains and marks; they reinstate the surface where holes have been gnawed by rats or eaten by worms; they replace missing lines and leaves in such a way that no one can discover the interpolations; they remake margins, giving them exactly the color of the original: in fact, so well is all this done that frequently the most discriminating judges cannot tell the restored copy from the perfect original work. Ornamental frontispieces, editors' marks, vignettes, coats-of-arms, manuscript or printed pages, all are imitated to a degree of accuracy that tasks even the most practiced eye. Such restoration however, is of course expensive. Thus, at a sale of books some time ago, a tattered, filthy and repulsive, but in some respects quite a unique copy of the Breviary of Geneva brought only $100, on account of the damaged condition it was in. The purchaser at once took it to a book restorer, who stated his terms to be $100, and that the process would require a year.