Traité de la police, Où l'on trouvera l'Histoire de son Etablissement, les Fonctions et les Prerogatives de ses Magistrats, toutes les Loix et tous les Reglemens qui la concernent. On y a joint une Description historique et topographique de Paris

New edition, with mention of Second and third augmented edition. The illustration includes 3 repeated title vignettes and eight folding plates of Paris, depicting the state of the city at different periods since its foundation. Title pages in red and black. The first volume of the Treatise on Police originally appeared in 1707, volume 2 in 1710, volume 3 in 1719, and a fourth volume (On Roads), written by Delamare's secretary, appeared posthumously in 1738, the latter not included in this 4-volume edition which reproduces the 1719 Paris edition in three volumes.
Contemporary binding in full marbled calf. Raised spine decorated. Red morocco title-labels. Brown calf volume labels, heavily rubbed, with partially illegible numbering. Lacking at tail of volumes I and II. Tail-caps of volumes III and IV torn away. Head-caps of volumes III and IV worn down. Lacks to upper boards of volumes I and III, with small lacks to lower edges. Generally rubbed. Constellation of wormholes on first compartment of volume I, with some holes on third compartment, likewise on fifth compartment of volume III. Lower corners bumped, some worn bare. Scattered small worming.
The Treatise on Police, while secondarily being a history of regulations in Antiquity and the exercise of police power, contains all ordinances and rules in every domain, that is everything relating to public law (food, commerce, spectacles, prisons...) for the city of Paris. The first volume also treats the various police corps and their administration. It was in 1667 that Lamoignon, First President of the Parliament of Paris, suggested the idea to Nicolas Delamare of writing a work describing police methods in a great city; Colbert's archives and rich library were opened to him for this purpose. "This work is not," says the author, "a simple collection of ordinances, as I had first proposed; these are dissertations on all matters of police; it is a history of all laws and all regulations from the establishment of the most ancient republics to the present." From the first pages of his Treatise, Delamare gave a broad definition of police as an "art of procuring a comfortable and tranquil life." Delamare's original plan envisioned 12 books; only 6 appeared. The first book treats "Police in general and its magistrates and officers," the second "religion," the third "morals," the fourth "health," and the fifth "provisions."