Mr X's Collection and Library (Part 2) - Books, seals and documents from the 16th to the 20th century

See original version (French)

CAPITAINE, Louis & BRUÉ, Adrien-Hubert. - Carte de la France comprenant toutes les mairies; divisée en départemens, arrondissemens et cantons, dressée par Louis Capitaine. Revue et augmentée par Belleyme... acquis par le Dépôt de la guerre en 1815, perfectionnée et agrandie jusqu'au delà du Rhin et des Alpes de 1816 à 1821 - A Paris, chez J. Goujon, 1818-1821.- Reunion of 25 large folding maps (out of 28) preserved in two large in-4 "book-style" half-bronze morocco covers, smooth spines decorated with fillets and large gilt fleurons with titles of the maps, green bronze morocco paper covers with gilt garlands (period covers). Beautiful set consisting of 25 (of 28) large canvas-folded leaves divided as follows: Box I: - Tableaux d'assemblage "Carte physique, administrative et routière de la France, indiquant aussi la navigation intérieure du royaume" - 1818 - Very large folding map forming a set (158 X 113 cm.). - Folio 1: Plymouth. - Folio 2: London. - Folio 3: Brussels - Amsterdam. - Folio 4: Nijmegen - Aachen. - Sheet 5: Brest. - Sheets 6, 7 and 8 are not present. - Folio 9: Quimperlé. - Sheet 10: Nantes. - Sheet 11: Bourges. - Folio 12: Besançon. Box II : - Sheet 13: Main title. - Folio 14: Bordeaux. - Sheet 15: Clermont-Ferrand. - Sheet 16: Grenoble. - Folio 17: Santander. - Sheet 18: Bayonne. - Sheet 19: Toulouse. - Sheet 20: Marseille. - Sheet 21: Burgos. - Sheet 22: Zaragoza. - Sheet 23: Barcelona. - Sheet 24: Conventional signs. - Sheet 25: Madrid. - Sheet 26: Valencia. - Folio 27: Balearic Islands. Louis Capitaine, a French cartographer (1749-1797) succeeded Cassini de Thury as director of the Carte de France (1784). He derived a map from it, which was the first to show the administrative divisions of France decreed in 1789. His family participated in the surveys of the Cassini Map from 1755 to 1789. From 1779 onwards, he was responsible for guarding the repository of the Carte de France. After the map was confiscated by the Convention, he defended the rights of the associates who believed they owned it. He was responsible for several reductions of the Carte de France: reduction to a quarter in 1789-1790 with the administrative divisions of old France, then with the départements.

DELAMARE, Nicolas & LE CLER du BRILLET. - Traité de la police, où l'on trouvera l'histoire de son établissement, les fonctions et les prérogatives de ses magistrats, tous les loix et tous les règlemens qui la concernent : On y a joint une description historique et topographique de Paris... With a collection of all the statutes and regulations of the six bodies of merchants. Second enlarged edition - Paris, chez Michel Brunet, chez Jean François Hérissant, 1722, 1719, 1738 - 4 volumes in-folio; marbled havana calf, ribbed spine decorated with gilt fillets, fleurons and motifs, red morocco title and appendix (period binding). Second edition for the first two volumes dated 1722, original edition dated 1719 for volume 3, volume 4 "Continuation du Traité de la Police..." dated 1738. This condition is fairly classic, as is the copy in the BnF (Record no.: FRBNF32361157). The iconography consists of 20 engraved vignettes and initials and 10 large folding engraved plans. "The first major methodical treatise on the French police, containing numerous documents relating to the history of the institutions". (Brunet III, 785). Pleasant copy in its decorative uniform binding of the period, a few imperfections of use to the headpieces and the spines (not serious), small marginal defects in the backs of some leaves; armorial dry stamp of the Gouy family (to the title).

DIDEROT, Denis & D'ALEMBERT. - Encyclopédie]. Recueil de planches sur les sciences, les arts libéraux et les arts méchaniques, avec leur explication - A Paris, chez Briasson, David, Le Breton, Durand, et al, 1762-1777 - 12 volumes in-folio; marbled havana calf, ribbed spine richly decorated with gilt fillets, fleurons and motifs, red morocco title-pieces, bronze green calf head-pieces. (Contemporary binding). First edition and complete collection of the plates of the famous Encyclopédie by Denis Diderot and Jean Le Rond d'Alembert. The text volumes are not present. The set comprises a total of 2793 engraved plates (they are numbered 3129 if double or triple plates are included). The fold-out distribution table is present in volume XI. Volume XII is entitled "Suite du recueil de planches sur les sciences..." and is complete with the three plates relating to Hermaphrodites. A pleasant copy in contemporary binding.

[MANUSCRIT - Diocèse de Noyon - 1740-1747] - [Registre des biens et revenus église de Saint-Quentin de Guiscard]. "Registre contenant les Biens de l'Église St. Quentin de Guiscard et en abrégé les titres qui les justifient, le tout dressé par les Ordres de Monseigneur L'Évêque de Noyon, Pair de France" - 1740-1747 - In-folio; ivory vellum, muted spine (period binding). This General Register was drawn up by Jean MANNIER, parish priest, and Sébastien LINETTE, churchwarden, from Saint-Rémy's Day 1740 in the presence of Antoine DUPÉRIN and Antoine François PATTE, former churchwardens, and completed in 1747. The document consists of 442 handwritten pages with, however, several gaps on pages 91 to 100, 121 to 124, 145-146, 155 to 158, 167 to 170, 269 to 272, 279 to 286, 337 to 340, 371-372, 391 to 394. Some of these pages would have contained handwritten information; however, it is also conceivable that many would have been left blank. They all bear the printed stamp of the Généralité de Soissons. (See a long explanatory handwritten note in pencil dated January 2003 on the last page). Period binding: an early handwritten note tells us that: "(...) this inventory was bound by Rocher, bookseller in Noyon, for 3 livres". A document of great regional interest.

MATTHIEU, Pierre. - Les Trois Parties des Tablettes de la vie et de la mort. Partie première - [partie troisième] - A Troyes, & ce vendent à Lyon, chez Vincent de Cœurffilly, 1630 - 3 parts bound in one oblong (103 X 51 mm.) in-32 volume of (2) ff, (100) pp. for the first part; (2) ff., (100) pp. for the second part; (4) ff., (100) pp. for the third part; marbled havana basane, spine with two ornate nerves, tawny title page (Binding of the period). A very rare "pocket" edition from Troy on the life and death of the poet and royal historiographer Pierre Matthieu (1563-1621). It is decorated with 2 engraved titles (first and second parts), the text printed in a typographical frame. First published between 1606 and 1622, the three hundred quatrains that make up Matthew's Tablets in Three Parts remain of great historical, religious and aesthetic interest to this day. An important witness to changing attitudes to death in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Matthew's verses also reflect a kind of ecumenical Christianity, in which the author, a former sympathiser of the Catholic League rallied to Henry IV, sought to find common ground between Catholicism and Protestantism. No other copies of this edition from Troy have been located in French or international public libraries. Binding from the period with a few wear defects at the upper head, jaws cracked, corners slightly dulled, margins sometimes a little short at the foot, small but not serious galling.

[MILITARIA]. - Set of 34 in-8 volumes bound in contemporary fawn half-basane. Important collection of 34 volumes each containing several works (between 5 and 10 approximately) relating to Militaria (history of the army, regiments, battles, biographies of officers, etc.) from the end of the 18th century to the beginning of the 19th century. Some of the volumes are enriched with handwritten annotations in ink at the time. This set probably came from the library of General Maximilien-Sébastien FOY, who was born in Ham in 1775 and died in Paris in 1825.

MONSTRELET, Enguerrand de. - Chronicles of Enguerran de Monstrelet, a gentleman formerly living in Cambray en Cambresis. Contenant les cruelles guerres civilles entre les maisons d'Orléans & de Bourgongne, l'occupation de Paris & Normandie par les Anglois, l'expulsion d'iceux, & autres choses mémorable advenues de son temps en ce Royaume & paÿs estanges... Reveue & corrigée... & enriched with abbreviations for the introduction to it & very copious tables. A Paris, chez Pierre l'Huillier, chez Guillaume Chaudière, 1572 - 3 volumes bound in two folio volumes of (12), 327 (i.e. 324, 31*, 31**, 31***), (6) ff. for volume 1; (8), 201, (5) ff. including 1 blank for volume 2; (10), 255, (12) ff. for volume 3; tan calf, ribbed spine decorated with gilt fillets, motifs and crowned arms, triple framing of gilt fillets on the covers, arms in the centres, gilt inner border (18th century binding). Edition decorated with the printers' marks on the titles: volume I is addressed to Pierre l'Huillier, volumes II and III are addressed to Guillaume Chaudière, there are also a multitude of woodcut initials in the text. "This edition is the finest we have of these chronicles" (Brunet, III, 1832). The Chronique de Monstrelet is one of the main historical sources for the first half of the 15th century; consisting of two books, it covers the years 1400 to 1444. The third book, which ends in 1467, is not by Monstrelet. It is followed in this edition by the Chronique scandaleuse, attributed to Jean de Roye, and the continuation by Pierre Desrey, which continued until 1512. A copy bearing the arms of Louis Robert Hippolyte de Bréhan, comte de Plélo (Brittany, 1699-1734). Joints cracked (the first cover of volume I is partially detached), headbands and corners worn, the second volume (containing volumes II and III) is fully set, handwritten signature "de Bréhan" on the first two titles; ex-libris of the Charles Schefer library.

"Nous Jehan conte de Scharsbury et de Wecfford, sire de Talbot et de Fournyvall*****, mareschal de France": confesses to having received from Jean de Simon Desplaces and Richart Bontemps servants of the Duke of York, the sum of sixteen hundred gold saluts worth two thousand four hundred livres tournois for his pension for the government of France and Normandy. 1st June 1448. Parchment document (25 x 10.5 cm), signed by Talbot, with his large red wax seal (fragmentary) on the tongue and his dry seal. In French. Magnificent document, from a person forever famous for his bravery during the Hundred Years' War. He would have deserved to be French. Expert : CABINET "HONORE D'URFE" - Mr Roch DE COLIGNY - 06 13 50 39 96