The hostel of the Invalides by Thomas Povey (1682) (Lambeth Palace Library MS.745). I.

AMONG the fields of enquiry to which the minds ofmen turned in Restoration England, that of hospital administration was not to be the least important in its effects. The impetus towards studies of this sort was produced in part by the foundation in Paris by Louis XIV of the Hotel des Invalides in 1674. Even before the useful effects of the great hospital had been evaluated, Charles II had written to the French King, asking for information about the foundation. Louis' reply was to commission the publication of the first printed account of the Invalides, Le Jeune de Boullencourt's sumptuously produced book, which appeared in 1683.1 Even before de Boullencourt handed his work to the printer however an English court official called Thomas Povey had composed a treatise which outshone that of the official writer-or would have done if it had ever got into print. A whole series of official or semi-official accounts of the Invalides followed Boullencourt's work. Books such as those of F6libien,' Granet3, or Calabre Perau' enriched by the plates of Cochin and other engravers, left nothing to be desired from the point of view of book production. Amongst this magnificence however the simple human story of the old age of France's greatest army was completely forgotten. That story had found its chronicler in the person of Thomas Povey, but it seemed that his narrative was to be enjoyed only by the few personages of high station for whom he had doubtless composed it. By one of the ironies of history, Povey's treatise, composed in 1682, has remained unpublished. Although it had apparently circulated in official hands and was shelved, and perhaps even read in Lambeth Palace (for the Archbishop of the day had had much to do with the foundation of London's 'Invalides', Chelsea Hospital) nothing more was heard of the work until it was discovered by the editor in Lambeth Palace Library in 1956. The fact that this manuscript remained unknown to scholars has produced more than one lacuna in the official histories of the Invalides. Nor was Paris the only sufferer, for Povey was a litterateur worthy to take his place among the brilliant writers of his period.