First edition.
Armorial copy of the Dukes of Luynes, at this date, most certainly of Marie Charles Louis d'Albert de Luynes, 5th Duke of Luynes. Armorial copies of the Luynes always bear only the heraldic device of the crowned lion on the spine in the 18th century.
Full glazed and marbled brown calf binding. Spine with raised bands decorated with the heraldic device of the Dukes of Luynes, with crowned lion. Red morocco title and volume labels. Small crack to lower joint at head of volume II. On the lower joint of volume 3, crack along one compartment for 2cm. In volume IV, small cracks to joints at foot, for a few millimeters. P.403, volume II, hole with loss of one letter. A dampstain trace in the margin of the title page of volume I. Despite these minor flaws, very fine copy.
Bookplate of the château de Dampierre, residence of the Luynes for 350 years. An 18th-century bookplate has been covered by old paper.
History of the Society of Jesus from its origins, violently hostile to the Jesuits. Numerous documents are analyzed therein. The work amply demonstrates the despotism of the Society and its complete corruption of the French political system, its plots throughout Europe. The book reveals a critique of absolute monarchy and a parliamentary vision of the political system.
In the late 1750s and early 1760s, the Jesuits suffered attacks from Jansenists, Gallicans and parliamentarians, then from the philosophers of the Encyclopedia. The financial scandal following the bankruptcy of the Jesuit Antoine Lavalette was a good opportunity for Louis XV to prohibit the Society by royal decision and banish it from France in 1763-1764. The Jesuits had already been expelled from Portugal in 1759 and would be from Spain in 1767.
Louis-Adrien Le Paige, lawyer at Parliament and counselor to the Prince de Conti, and Christophe Coudrette, were both Jansenist abbés. Their book was therefore published in a very tense context for the Jesuits and thus presents itself as a series of revelations about their history that would justify their annihilation.
First edition.
Contemporary full brown sheep binding. Smooth spine richly decorated with ornamental tools and roulettes. Red morocco title and volume labels. The title label reads "Memoire de Torcy" while the title page is anonymous, so the author of these anonymous memoirs must have been well known at the time. Light rubbing. The half-titles of volumes II and III are not present, as in all copies we have consulted, so it is possible that they are not actually missing, and that there was only one half-title for the entire work. Very handsome copy, very fresh.
Armorial bookplate engraved in the 18th century of Louis Francois (1713-1791), Marquis de Monteynard (Languedoc), First Governor of Corsica, Secretary of State for the War Department and Lieutenant General of Burgundy. Vair, a chief gules, charged with a lion naissant or.
Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Marquis de Torcy, was an important French diplomat and a key figure in the various international congresses that led to the establishment of the Peace of Utrecht and the end of the War of Spanish Succession. Between the Treaty of Ryswick and that of Utrecht, France lost Acadia (Quebec) and its other American territories, as well as its dream of hegemony over Europe, but gained a relatively lasting peace and the security of its national territory. The three volumes are distributed as follows: I. negotiations with Spain, II, with Holland, III, with England, and for the Treaty of Utrecht.
