Oraison funèbre […] du prince de Condé

The funeral orations of the Bishop of Meaux, Louis XIV’s favorite preacher, represent the summit of oratorical art and the masterpiece of French classicism. Although Bossuet himself did not care for the genre, deeming it “of little use,” his literary reputation rested almost exclusively on these orations until the end of the eighteenth century — foremost among them this celebrated oration for Louis de Bourbon, Prince de Condé, which Madame de Sévigné judged “very fine and by the hand of a master,” writing to her cousin Bussy-Rabutin that “Monsieur de Meaux surpassed himself, and never has such fine material been so nobly presented or worked” (letter of 10 March 1687).

The text also recalls the vanity of earthly things, death striking down even the most valiant commander of his age: “at once dramatized and simplified, the battle narrative becomes for the listener or reader the truest expression of a eulogy whose reception is always precarious […]. The account of the Battle of Rocroi presents a ‘coincidence of divine and human causality’ characteristic of ‘good actions'” (Sophie Hache, “Le style de l’histoire dans l’Oraison funèbre de Condé de Bossuet,” Dix-septième siècle, vol. 245, no. 4, 2009).

Le Petit, p. 414: “This is unquestionably one of Bossuet’s most admirable oratorical pieces”; Tchemerzine, I, 858; Rochebilière, no. 226.

A fine copy in an English binding, with particularly generous margins (the Rochebilière copy measures 239 mm in height).

From the library of Joël Dupont (bookplate).