J. Frédéric Bernard

First edition. Another edition appeared on the same date from Florentin Delaulne in Paris. Title page in red and black.
Full old red morocco binding ca 1860, unsigned. Raised bands spine in Jansenist style decorated with blind compartments. Gilt title and "Edition originale" at foot. Double blind fillet frame on boards. Rich interior border. Edges gilt. Foxing, angular lack at head of leaf 45-46 not touching text, light rubbing at foot of spine, a very small marginal dampstain affecting some leaves at head, otherwise handsome copy, in an unsigned master binding.
Dialogue between A, B and C on the nature of eloquence, A having the role of Socrates and employing maieutics, B and C responding to A's questions. The characters discuss a sermon they have just heard and from there define the qualities of true eloquence by drawing these from examples of the Ancients. Fénelon criticizes both Ancients and Moderns, giving preference to the eloquence of Holy Scripture.
Du Cerceau's essay attempts to characterize French poetry and what makes verse specific in relation to prose. Both works are supported by quite subtle and pertinent grammatical analyses (adjectives, figures, genitive and ablative...).

Edition with some parts in first edition, definitive, rare; "more complete than the previous ones and the best that was given in the 18th century"... Tchemerzine V, 396. An engraved portrait by Thomassin at the frontispiece. This would be the only edition of the Memoirs cited by de Bure in his bibliography. Title pages in red and black.
Contemporary full blonde calf binding, glazed. Spine with raised bands decorated with 4 fleurons. Title labels absent, the letters remaining visible; black calf volume labels, rubbed. Headcaps of volumes I and II worn, volumes III and IV frayed; tailcap of volume I partially missing. Joints of volume I cracked, cracked at head and foot for volume II and for volumes III and IV. One gathering of the table detached. Corners bumped.
Paul de Gondi wrote his memoirs at the request of his friends, during his exile, around the age of sixty (circa 1675 - 1677), and composed the autobiography of a politician in an era of civil war, the Fronde. Not content with being a historical testimony of the first order, the work stands among the literary monuments of the 18th century and of memoirs and other autobiographies, through its lively, precise style, that of a man of action and intrigue with remarkable intelligence and political ambition always alert (always ready to ally with those who betrayed him the day before). His memoirs would constitute a revenge and his last resort of ambition. At the end of volume IV, a long mazarinade dedicated to the Prince de Conti: Le courrier burlesque de la guerre de Paris.
19th-century armorial bookplate of William Wickhman.