7 PARIS: BIRTHPLACE OF THE U.S.A. Number 41 Quai des Grands-Augustins, where I met Daniel Jouve, turns out to be a predestined place. In the first half of the 20th century, it was the property of Ch. Chadenat, the renowned Americanist bookseller and collector of travel books, mentioned by Blaise Cendrars inBourlinguer. More notably, this location on the « quai des bouquins » as Diderot called it, housed a bookstore at the end of the 18th century under the sign of Les Neuf Muses, specializing in marine and travel books. It was here that the future president Thomas Jefferson, a dedicated bibliophile and then ambassador to Paris, purchased numerous books which later found their way into the Library of Congress in Washington. It was Daniel Jouve who led me to this surprising discovery. While writing his book Paris: Birthplace of the U.S.A. – A Walking Guide for the American Patriot, in collaboration with his wife Alice and Alvin Grossman (Paris, Gründ, 1995, 4th edition 2006), he entered my bookstore at number 41 Quai des Grands-Augustins for the first time and, with emotion and delight, asked if he could sit and breathe in the air of a place where Thomas Jefferson himself had once come to buy books. Daniel Jouve knew this because he had personally consulted his purchase receipts, preserved at the Library of Congress – several of which bore the letterhead of the bookstore Les Neuf Muses. I was astonished, as I had chosen the name Les Neuf Muses for my bookstore for entirely different reasons, unaware of this historical connection. I then confirmed the existence of this 18th-century Parisian bookstore after a quick verification in Roxane Debuisson’s famous collection of invoices and signs. Aside from the delights of serendipity, Daniel Jouve nurtured an unwavering passion for books and documents, with a particular interest in the shared history of France and the United States. His bibliophilic approach happily extended his personal commitment to his American wife and illustrated, through scholarly research, the sincere sense of a shared destiny between their two nations. Among the rare books he gathered were foundational texts such as the Constitutions of the Thirteen United States of America, the Federal Constitution of 1787, or Jefferson’s Manual of Parliamentary Practice. He also collected major theoretical and polemical works that shaped both French and American political thought around the democratic regime of the United States—fostering dialogues across the Atlantic— by authors such as Adams, Franklin, Jefferson, Mazzei, and Stevens on one side, and Brissot, Condorcet, Conseil, Dupont de Nemours, La Fayette, Mably, and Raynal on the other. Mutual tributes, such as the praises of La Fayette by Adams, of Franklin by Fauchet and Mirabeau, or of Washington by Henry Lee, blended official recognition with personal admiration. Also prominently featured are histories, memoirs, and correspondences on the American War of Independence or the Louisiana Purchase by Barbé-Marbois, Hilliard d'Auberteuil (from the copy of a French veteran at the siege of Yorktown), Jefferson, La Fayette, or Morris. Additionally, there are enlightening travel narratives by French and English authors, or other monographs concerning the United States, published mainly between 1770 and 1850, including books by Chastellux, Montlezun, Crèvecœur, or the rare Champ-d'asile by L'Héritier. Finally, Daniel Jouve had assembled a vast modern documentary collection exploring all facets of Franco-American ties. May the books from this fascinating Franco-American library continue to journey and disperse across France and America ! Alain NICOLAS LibrairieLes Neuf Muses
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