Les intérêts de la France mal entendus dans les branches de l'agriculture, de la population, des finances, de la marine, & de l'industrie

First edition, rare.
Half blond sheep bindings. Smooth spines decorated in the grotesque style. Red morocco title labels and beige morocco volume labels. Library labels at foot. Two small wormholes along the lower joint of volume I. A split with loss at the lower joint of volume II. A good, decorative copy.

A pioneering work of physiocratic ideas in economics, in which the author advocates greater reliance on agriculture. He develops numerous theses on population and trade, as well as on public finance, and addresses many areas: the use of colonies, the tobacco trade, the state of the clergy, state pensions, observing that laws and customs in France restrict its growth and prosperity, that household taxes should be eased; the whole is not without many provocations, for example suggesting that members of the Church should work as ploughmen, or that beggars be purged from the cities by forcing them into agricultural labour, etc. Ange Goudar portrays a nation entangled in its traditions and in ill-suited laws, proposing for each problem a straightforward solution. This is not the work of a philosopher or a theorist, but of a pragmatic mind, applying common sense wherever he deems it necessary.
A work full of insights for the history of French economic thought, since the author addresses every sphere of public and economic life from a historical perspective, providing numerous supporting figures.