Abbotsford Club > Historical memoirs of the reign of Mary, Queen of Scots, and a portion of the reign of King James the Sixth

xviii PREFATORY NOTICE.
tion, at the sacking of the College during the Revolution, at
least some portions of them would have found their way into
the Public Library of the town, either by means of donations,
purchases, or bequests. No vestige, however, can be had of the
existence of any such documents; and those of the Editor's
friends who have made inquiries on the spot have stated that they
were unable to discover anything farther, than that the MSS. and
printed Collections belonging to the Scots College at Douay
were understood to have been very large and valuable ; and that
it was most probable that the whole of them must have perished,
by fire or otherwise, during the French Revolution.
Considerable obscurity also hangs over the fate of the MSS.
which belonged to the Scots College at Paris, but the Editor
has better hopes of some considerable portion of that Collection
having been saved, previous to the sacking of the place by the
populace during the French Revolution. There is no doubtwhat-
ever that some parts of the Collection are still in existence, for it is
known that not only did the members of that institution succeed
in carrying off a considerable quantity of whatever was portable,
and not particularly liable to observation, but many of the unfor-
tunate persons who had been confined as prisoners in the College
made no scruple at appropriating whatever they could lay their
hands on, to prevent the total destruction of the Collection by
the infuri;ited rabble. During a short residence in Paris, in
October 1832, the Editor attempted to trace some of these do-
cuments to the public Collections of the Royal and Mazarine
Libraries, but without effect. The accounts which he was then
enabled to collect were of the most unsatisfactory and contra-
dictory nature ; and it unfortunately happened that at that time
the whole of the Royal Library was in the course of undergoing