the essential
Béatrice Jaques is the only bookbinder in Cahors. She repairs dozens of books and not always the ones you think. The specialist saves Clément Marot as well as Harry Potter.
She is the good fairy of damaged books. In Cahors, Béatrice Jaques saves the lives of dozens of forgotten, abandoned or mistreated books. The woman who took over Valérie Rapaud’s bookstore a year ago, with her partner Etienne Cronier, has specialized in bookbinding. While he runs the shop, La petite faiseuse de livres, at 17 rue Clément Marot, she restores and breathes new life into books from the Lotois, rue Pèlegry, in her workshop. “I work on all types of books. Strangely, I am mostly asked to repair books from the 2000s for the aesthetics, whereas I expected to bind old books to preserve them,” she notes, amused. And she has requests. Much more than she had imagined. “I was supposed to run the bookstore, but I’m so busy at the bookbinding that I end up spending more time than expected in the workshop,” she adds. She receives customers every week. Between her hands, family and love stories, heirlooms, and prized treasures pass. Like an original book of poetry by Clément Marot from the 16th century.
“The first book I restored, in January, had fallen to pieces. It was a collection of poems by Francis Carco. Its owner was very moved because thanks to me, he was finally able to read it again,” she remembers. The bookbinder, who graduated with a CAP in 2023, also restored a very personal biography. “One day, a customer brought me a book written by her father twenty years earlier. It was about meeting her mother,” she continues.
One book: three days of work
More unusual, at the moment, she is binding the 7 Harry Potter volumes for an enthusiast. Not that the copies are already damaged. No, the owner wants a unique version with a leather binding that he plans to have gilded by a specialist. On Béatrice Jaques’ desk, there are currently 14 books to mend. Knowing that she spends three days on just one book… A goldsmith’s work.
“I start with the sewing, then I make the backing to create the curve in a wooden vice on which I hit the book with a backed hammer, I assemble the two covers, I cover them, I fill to avoid having a difference in level, I fit together and glue the endpapers”, she explains. Then all that remains is to choose the aesthetic: marbled paper, leather, Japanese style with canvas fabric… Expect to pay at least 60 euros. But sometimes, the book is in such bad shape that Béatrice Jaques has to recreate her own notebook. She also makes conservation boxes, like an XL version of an eyeglass case, to keep books that are too damaged or reduced to the state of loose sheets and leaves. The bookbinding activity is not profitable enough to allow the bookselling couple to make a living from it. But it is “a good complement”, summarizes Béatrice Jaques who has not finished turning the pages.
