The eighteenth century saw a strong codification of the practices of bibliophily. From then on, the search for rare books inevitably involved the use of catalogues, usually put together by booksellers listing the contents of prestigious libraries for sale. This article is based on a study of twenty-eight catalogues printed between 1701 and 1799. What place occupied Central and Eastern Europe in the libraries of French secular elites of the time ? Out of a total of 97.345 entrees, 364 titles do not seem to represent much. However, the chronological and thematic orientations they exhibit (travels, geography, history, politics) reveal a curiosity that unmistakeably leans towards those regions. While focusing on Hungary, Poland and Russia, the article demonstrates how uneven this curiosity is distributed between those countries.