Histoire d'un pou françois ; ou l'espion d'une nouvelle espece, tant en France qu'en Angleterre. Contenant les portraits des personnages interessans dans ces deux royaumes, & donnant la clef des principaux evénemens de l'an 1779, & de ceux qui doivent arriver en 1780

First edition.
Full vellum binding with flaps, reused circa 1920. Smooth spine. Title calligraphed in red and black. Manuscript writing on covers, probably late 18th century. Bound on uncut wrappers, as issued. Worming to title page.
Autobiographical memoirs of a louse, which passing from head to head, embellishing its confessions with philosophical reflections, finds itself on the queen's head, then on that of Benjamin Franklin. It is essentially a political satire of affairs between France and the United States, featuring fictional dialogues, notably between the Minister of the Navy and Benjamin Franklin. It reveals a grand project consisting of seizing England to share it between France, Spain and the United States. This curiosity was written after Benjamin Franklin's delegation to France in 1778, mandated by the American Congress; it was on this occasion that Louis XVI signed the treaty recognizing the independence of the United States as a nation, and that England signed the independence of the thirteen colonies.
20th-century engraved bookplate with the motto Nec ridendo vellicat.