Du Festin du Roi-Boit

Edition limited to 60 copies of this rare and celebrated pamphlet tracing the history of the bean and Epiphany.

"Cette dissertation était devenue si rare qu'on en connaissait que deux exemplaires; elle a été réimprimée en 1808, à Besançon". Brunet I, 1387.

Our copy is preserved in its original stitching, in contemporary plain marbled blue paper wrappers.

Foxing to the title page, small angular paper losses to the wrappers.

A rare and handsome copy, with wide margins, as issued.

Claude Nicolas Amanton, who in 1810 was responsible for a reprint of this text in Le Magasin Encyclopédique, gives some details about this first reissue:

« This Dissertation is by the learned dean and professor of theology at the University of Besançon, Jean-Baptiste BULLET, born in Besançon in 1699 and died in the same city on 6 September 1775. The author had it printed in Besançon in 1762 (8vo, 16 pages), in a very small number of copies. Its rarity gave the idea, in 1808, to a few amateurs to have it reprinted in Besançon, in fifty copies. This edition follows the first and, like it, bears the date 1762. The booklet by BULLET nevertheless remained extremely rare and consequently very little known, which led us to publish it in the Magasin Encyclopédique.»

According to a letter from Charles Weiss to Nodier, dated 1821, this first reprint was the work of their friend the printer Claude-François Mourgeon, and was in fact printed in 60 copies.

A fascinating bibliographical study of the editions of Le Festin du Roi-boit appeared in Hommage à Bruno Monnier (1926–1991): homme de presse, bibliophile, Franc-Comtois, Autun, Marcelin, 2009; we reproduce it here with the kind permission of its author, François de Scey-Montbéliard:

« On 18 June 1984, Bruno Monnier offered, under number 21, what he believed to be the first edition of the “Roi-boit”, as collectors familiarly call it. It is said that on that occasion a controversy arose between him and the president of a society of Franche-Comté bibliophiles, who disputed the “original” status of the copy in question. Monnier admitted his mistake, the work remained unsold and was offered again in 1989.

The confusion is understandable. All the early editions bear the same date: Charmet, 1762. But a detailed analysis of the number of leaves as well as the description of the title page allows clarification.

The true first edition is indeed very rare – only two copies were known, according to Barbier, at the time of its reissue – but it has been possible to collate it from the copy owned by Charles Nodier. It appeared as item 37 in his 1830 sale (Catalogue des livres curieux, rares et précieux [...] composant la Bibliothèque de M. Ch. Nodier, homme de lettres; dont la vente se fera le jeudi 28 janvier 1830 et jours suivans, Paris, Merlin, 1829):

37. Du Festin du Roi-boit (par Bullet), Besançon, Charmet, 1762, small 8vo, citron morocco, gilt edges, Thouvenin.

First edition, very rare, with a note in the hand of B***** [Jean-Jacques Bruand], councillor of the prefecture at Besançon, who shot himself some years ago after stabbing his son.

This first edition has been more precisely described from that copy:

[Within a rococo border] Du festin / du / Roi-boit. [Vignette: two busts in profile, facing each other in medallions, surrounded by ornaments and surmounted by a crown] Besançon, De l’imprimerie de Jean-Felix Charmet. 1762. Small 8vo, pp. [2] (title, verso blank), 17, [1] blank.

Bruand’s note reads: “It was from this copy of the Roi-boit that a new edition (by Mourgeon in 1808) was printed, but only 80 copies, bearing the same date 1772 [sic] and imprint Charmet.”

This later edition has been identified as follows:

[Within a rococo border] Du festin / du / Roi-boit. [Vignette: two shaggy busts facing forward, surrounded by ornaments and surmounted by a crown] Besançon, De l’imprimerie de Jean-Felix Charmet. 1762. Large 8vo, pp. [2] (title, verso blank), 16, [1] blank.

This description does not convey the close resemblance of the ornaments (border and vignette) between this edition and the first. The similarity is deliberate, but with small differences to avoid confusion: the figures in the vignette are quite distinct. Moreover, this printing, on thick bluish paper with wide margins, may be taken for a quarto format.

A letter from Charles Weiss to Charles Nodier, dated 19 November 1822, further clarifies this edition: “If you don’t have the Dissertation by Bullet on the Roi-boit, printed in 60 copies, all on heavy paper, Mourgeon offers you one unbound, quarto format. Bonjour.” It is nonetheless surprising that Mourgeon waited fourteen years to offer such a gift!

Nodier’s copy was sold as item 38 in the same sale. It was bound in red morocco, quarto format, and described as one of the 60 copies printed by Mongeon (sic), four of which on vellum paper.

Only this large-format edition, on fine paper and closely modeled on the original edition, can correspond to Weiss’s letter and Bruand’s note.

The copy in the Dole library (shelfmark TH 506-1, Pallu collection) is described as “Large-paper copy of the reprint made in 1808 by Mourgeon.”

Two years later, in 1810, the scholar Amanton, mayor of Auxonne, published a new annotated edition in the Magasin Encyclopédique. That same year his friend M. Chardon de la Rochette issued a separate printing of one hundred copies. This edition is clearly distinct from the preceding one:

Dissertation de J. B. Bullet sur le festin du Roi-boit; avec des notes, par C. N. Amanton... Paris, J.-B. Sajou, 1810. 8vo, 20 pp.

In his preface, Amanton claims to be the author of a previous edition. This can only be the one we now describe:

[Within a typographical frame] Du festin / du / Roi-boit. [Vignette: two cherubs seated around a crown] Besançon, De l’imprimerie de Jean-Felix Charmet. 1762. Small 8vo, pp. [2] (title, verso blank), 12, [1] blank.

This edition has sometimes been described as the second, printed in fifty copies. It is the one reproduced by Bruno Monnier in his 1984 catalogue.

It was clearly printed in the nineteenth century, as shown by its typographical border. Vicaire dates it to Paris, 1823. Another hypothesis, however, seems plausible. It is based on the original edition copy owned by Don Grappin, formerly the property of Dr. Giafferi and sold at auction in Dole on 12 November 2005. The catalogue reproduces the work, where one reads, in an old hand: “A second edition was issued from the private press of Mr. Thomassin of Besançon.” It therefore seems probable that this printing was the first reissue, produced at Amanton’s initiative on Thomassin’s private press.

We may next consider a Lille edition, visibly inspired by the one just described—so closely, in fact, that one might suspect the publisher of mistaking it for the original.

[Within a typographical frame] Du festin / du / Roi-boit. [Vignette: two cherubs in floral ornament] Besanç*