Mémoires de Monsieur de Montrésor [suivi de]

Name: Mémoires de Monsieur de Montrésor [suivi de]
SKU: 14723
Price: 360 USD
Availability: InStock
Author: Claude de Bourdeille

Mémoires de Monsieur de Montrésor et autres pièces curieuses, pour servir d'esclaicissement à ce qui est contenu au premier volume

Cologne, Jean Sambix, 1664; Leyde, Jean Sambix, 1665.

2 vols. (70 x 125 mm) of [2] f., 436 p. and [4] f., 385 p. Marbled basane, smooth spine richly decorated with gilt fillets, panels and fleurons, title-piece, red edges, rolled fillets on the edges (contemporary binding).

Partly first edition, complete with its supplement.

Published by Jean Sambix le Jeune in Cologne in 1664, and printed in imitation of Elzevier editions, this second volume is a supplement that Willems describes as “not essential,” since the pieces comprising it “are connected to the main work only by the bookseller’s fancy… most copies contain only the first volume, which moreover bears no volume number.” It is, in any case, extremely rare.

Claude de Bourdeille, comte de Montrésor (d. 1663), Grand Huntsman to Gaston d’Orléans, was a seasoned and inveterate conspirator. During Richelieu’s ministry, he proposed the cardinal’s assassination to his master; implicated in the conspiracy of Cinq-Mars and de Thou, Montrésor was forced to take refuge in England. Returning to France after the death of Louis XIII, he took part in the events of the Fronde and eventually made his peace with Mazarin upon the cardinal’s final return to power.

“His Memoirs relate in considerable detail the events that took place from 1632 to the beginning of the Fronde. The facts reported by this eyewitness are authentic. Already of great interest in themselves, since the author was extremely well placed to know these secrets, they become even more valuable to the historian through the various documents inserted within them” (Bourgeois).

A good copy.

#14723

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