This was an auction of rare books and manuscripts with a lot of books covering more than five centuries and two very different auctioneers: an Italian one, quite efficient, managing to extract top bids from the audience, and rather entertaining with funny manners and amusing jokes, with an Italian accent as recognizable when he spoke French as the delicious French accent of the charming lady who runs Sotheby's café in London, and a French very boring one as dull as Monsieur Fillon. Books were generally carefully described although a friend of mine spotted a bargain with a miscatalogued book which had an estimate of ten thousand euros, printed on silk in the late nineteenth century according to a kind of computer program: an eminent New York dealer is pricing another copy 55 000 dollars on the correct ground that the book marks a landmark in the history of computers and the last copy auctioned in Paris fetched 20 000 euros. This shows that there are bargains in the least likely places.
In about three hours about 150 books and manuscripts changed hands (or, for some, failed to sell) for a total of about 2 million dollars, small beer in comparison with an auction of modern paintings. In this age of twitter and low literacy there is still market for rare books, at least in Paris. Entry was free although security seemed high and a youngster coming clearly from Pakistan would have been presumably searched. I was wearing my most sober Armani suit and managed to enter the room without trouble. While public French finances are in sorrow state a regional museum managed to purchase for about 120 000 euros a few silly drawing made by Arthur Rimbaud at the age of ten. France is still a country which cares for its 'patrimoine'. My neighbor cynically observed that Rimbaud costed less to the nation than Mrs Fillon, without accepting my objection that Mrs Fillon worked very hard while Rimbaud produced only poetry. These damned Frenchmen respect nobody and nothing.