LANDLORD / BOOKSELLER
BERGERET, [Guillaume].
Advertisement of M. Bergeret, Bookseller.
[Bordeaux, c. 1787.]
Small card advertisement, c. 82 x 53 mm, printed recto only; a little toned, but an excellently preserved example.
A very rare advertisement card of a provincial bookseller from Bordeaux, a scarce piece of trade ephemera.
The advertisement, designed to be pasted into books or handed out as appropriate, informs: ‘Mr Bergeret, a Bookseller formerly on the Rue de la Mercy, gives notice that he has just established his new home and bookstore in the large new house, located on the Rue de la Chapelle St. Jean, opposite the homonymous chapel, where one will find, as before, all that is rarest, most varied, and best in Books’ (trans.). The advert ends with the notice that Bergeret was also renting large apartments – proof of the old book trade adage that booksellers make their money from selling properties, not books.
Guillaume Bergeret (1737–1813) was a Bordeaux bookseller from a bibliophile family, with his brother François Bergeret similarly employed in another part of the city. Received as a bookseller by decree of the Council on 23 August 1767, he took his oath before the jurade of Bordeaux on 21 July 1768 and remained active in the trade until his death in 1813 (as now, a bookseller never retires); he was then succeeded by his widow. Bergeret opened a reading room in Bordeaux in 1789 and was a representative of the Third Estate of Bordeaux the same year.
Bergeret moved from his premises on the Rue de la Mercy in around 1785, and is recorded as active on the Rue de la Chapelle-Saint Jean from 1787. The present card must date from shortly after his move.
