Maréchal Duc de VILLARS, Louis-Pierre ANQUETIL
Vie du Marechal Duc de Villars
Chez Moutard|à Paris 1784|10 x 17.20 cm|4 volumes reliés
First edition, illustrated with a medallion portrait frontispiece and 4 folding battle plans.
Contemporary full marbled tobacco-colored sheep bindings. Smooth spine decorated in grotesque style with chevrons. Fawn morocco title-label and volume labels. Frame border on boards. One lack to upper joint at tail. One hole on spine of volume 3 and on that of volume 1. Rubbing to headcaps. Corners slightly bumped. One gathering sprung in volume 1, another in volume 3. Good copy, quite decorative.
An edition of Villars' Memoirs by Abbé de Montgon was published in 1739, but it is very incomplete, based only on a copy of a single manuscript and on gazette extracts. Marshal de Castries and Marquis de Vogué called upon Anquetil to restore authentic and reliable memoirs and render justice to one of Louis XIV's greatest generals; they lent him for this purpose 142 notebooks of memoirs of 32p. folio, and 14 volumes of letters. Anquetil therefore undertook a vast work of compilation and made the Duke speak in the first person, using the letters as aid. All the documents were subsequently deposited in the Sainte Geneviève library.
Blue stamp "Bibliothèque Christian Kieher" on endpapers.
Contemporary full marbled tobacco-colored sheep bindings. Smooth spine decorated in grotesque style with chevrons. Fawn morocco title-label and volume labels. Frame border on boards. One lack to upper joint at tail. One hole on spine of volume 3 and on that of volume 1. Rubbing to headcaps. Corners slightly bumped. One gathering sprung in volume 1, another in volume 3. Good copy, quite decorative.
An edition of Villars' Memoirs by Abbé de Montgon was published in 1739, but it is very incomplete, based only on a copy of a single manuscript and on gazette extracts. Marshal de Castries and Marquis de Vogué called upon Anquetil to restore authentic and reliable memoirs and render justice to one of Louis XIV's greatest generals; they lent him for this purpose 142 notebooks of memoirs of 32p. folio, and 14 volumes of letters. Anquetil therefore undertook a vast work of compilation and made the Duke speak in the first person, using the letters as aid. All the documents were subsequently deposited in the Sainte Geneviève library.
Blue stamp "Bibliothèque Christian Kieher" on endpapers.
€500