Lot of 2 Pamphlets, 2 Pamphlets, 1 Book - Ancien Regime.
1. Advocacy. Extrait des Registres du Parlement. Da quatre Février mil sept cent soixante-quinze.
Paris, P. G. Simon, 1775
4to; 275x210 mm. 4 pp. Woodcut Ornate headpiece and initial with fleurs-de-lis of France. Good copy.
Pamphlet in which Antoine-Louis Séguier, lawyer to the King and Nicolas de Lambon, president of the Bar Association, banished Simon-Nicolas-Henri Linguet (1736-1794) from the said order because of his writings in which “il a attaqué dans fes écrits le droit naturel, celui des Gouvernemens, le droit public du Royaume, le droit eccléfiaftique, & les loix civiles.” also “Dans un Ecrit qu'il vient de répandre avec profusion, il calomnie & déchire avec fureur les Anciens & les Deputes de notre Ordre.”
Linguet, a lawyer of great renown and embattled publicist was involved in continuous, violent controversies, which often forced him to take refuge abroad and to be arrested and executed by the revolutionary court.
2. Edit du Roy, Portant Reglement général pour les Duchés & Pairies. Donne à Marly as mois de May 1711.
In Paris, chez P. Prault, 1753
4to, 270x212 mm. Pp. 8. Woodcut vignette with fleurs-de-lys of France on titlepage. Ornate woodcut headpiece and initial. Handwritten annotations and comments in black ink in margin of third paper. Good uncut copy with wide margins.
Interesting pamphlet drafted in 1711 in which the King, in 10 chapters, regulates the establishment of Duchies or the titles of Peers of France.
“… les Titres de Pairs de France aussi distingués autrefois par leur rareté, qu'ils le seront toûjours par leur élevation, se sont multipliés: toutes les grandes Maisons en ont délité l'éclat, plusieurs l'ont obtenu, & par une espece d'émulation, de faveur & de credit, elles se sont efforcées à l'envie de trouver dans le comble même des Honneurs, de nouvelles distinctions, par des claues recherchées avec art, foit pour perpetuer la Pairie dans leur poftérité au-delà defes bornes naturelles, foit pour faire revivre en leur faveur, des rangs qui étoient éteints, & des Titres qui ne subsistoient plus.”
3. Unigenitus - Papal bull. Lettre Ecrite au Roy, par L'Assemblee Generale du Clerge de France tenue à Paris, au Couvent des grands Augustins, en l'année mil sept cent trente.
Paris, Pierre Simon, 1730
Large 4to; 288x225 mm. Pp. 20, 2 blank. Woodcut Headpiece and initial. Fine specimen with wide margins.
Letter addressed to the King of France Louis XV by the National Assembly of the Clergy of France consisting of about thirty senior French prelates. They particularly accuse the Bishop of Montpellier of undermining the State, the People and the Church by denigrating the Bull Unigenitus and undermining the foundations of the Faith by shaking the souls of the people with facts and terms “borrowed from Protestant authors.”
Unigenitus Dei Filius (known simply as Unigenitus) was an apostolic constitution, in the form of a papal bull, promulgated by Pope Clement XI to condemn the heresy of Jansenism in 1713.
It provoked bitter arguments in the French church, which in fact was divided between the so-called acceptors, who precisely accepted the papal order, and the appellants, who rejected the bull and appealed to a council.
4. A la Nation, Poeme.
1762
Large 4to; 305x230 mm. Cardboard binding. Pp. 22 pp., 1 blank. Woodcut Vignette on titlepage, headpiece and endpapers. The small headpiece is engraved by Papillon. Waterstains, good copy.
Patriotic-sounding poem extolling the French kingdom and insulting England.
The Poem was printed at the end of the Seven Years' War (1756-1763), a global conflict that pitted Britain and Prussia against France, Austria, and other European states. The war was caused by colonial rivalries between France and Britain and Austria's desire to reduce Prussia's power.
5. Essai sur une Amitié Patriotique.
Londres, J. P. Costard, 1770
8vo; 155x90 mm. Cardboard binding. Halftitle, pp. 183, [3]. Small lacks to binding and defects. Fair uncut copy.
First edition. Interesting essay on “patriotic friendship” that proposes infallible means to make men more virtuous and better citizens, against a background of increasing politicization of the literary topic of friendship.
The work is among the theoretical works in which friendship between public figures, elevates it to a political virtue, and seeks to show that "private and public virtues are closely linked" in a republican context.