‎BOULAINVILLIERS, (H.) DE.‎
‎Histoire de l'ancien gouvernement de la France. Avec XIV lettres historiques sur les Parlemens ou États-Généraux. A La Haye, Amsterdam, Aux dépens de la Compagnie, 1727. 3 volumes. Titles printed in red and black. - (Followed by:) (BOULAINVILLIERS, H. DE.) Mémoires présentés à Monseigneur d'Orléans, contenant les moyens de rendre ce royaume très-puissant, & d'augmenter considérablement les revenus du Roy et du peuple.‎

‎A La Haye & A Amsterdam, Aux dépens de la Compagnie, 1727. 2 volumes. - Together 5 volumes bound in 4. (34), 352 pp.; (2), 324 (misnumbered 224) pp.; (2), 240, (6) pp.; (6), 158 pp.; (2), (1-4), 5-230, (2, table & errata) pp. 12mo. Contemporary marbled calf, spines gilt with raised bands, labels with gilt lettering. First work: Camus 874; Monod, Bibliographie de l'histoire de France, 1057; Conlon 27:348. First edition. Claims the re-establishment of the États-Généraux. The absolutism of the royalty had destructed the feudal system which had assured the people of more freedom. In Boulainvilliers's view, absolutism had destructed not only the freedom of the people, but especially the religious freedom. He claimed that the absolute power of the King should be controlled by the States General. He may be considered as one of the very first historians, who considered government as a science. The above work is considered as the author's main work."He shared the humanitarianism and the somewhat antimercantilistic sentiments of Vauban and Boisguillebert. He agreed (..) that the condition of the masses, particularly that of the peasants, must be improved. In his indifference to, and criticism of, the established religion, he anticipated the philosophes. The power of the state, Boulainvilliers believed, depended upon its having happy and comfortable subjects and a great number of common people - in his opinion, the most useful class of the state and the source of the nation's labor supply and soldiers; upon the existence of respect for the rights and liberties of individuals; and upon the absence of absolutism" (Spengler, p. 36). See also at length: Simon, Boulainvilliers, pp. 144 and ff. Second work: Kress 3678; INED 714; Goldsmiths 6532; not in Einaudi; Bourgeois & André 6557; Weulersse, i, xix; Monod, Bibliographie de l'histoire de France, 4344; Conlon 27:349.First edition. Political and economical improvements are suggested. With great frankness the author lays bare the causes of the financial distress of France. His work was prohibited in France. The mémoire against the financiers and proposing a state-treasurer's office; the mémoire against arbitrary taxation; the mémoire against the excessive salt-tax and the mémoire against disorderly financial administration in general, are of special interest. In many ways the author anticipates the ideas of the Physiocrats, who held him in great esteem. Boulainvilliers's works were all published after his death, mostly in Holland or under Dutch imprint, and were forbidden in France. -Ex-libris of Caboud on front paste-downs, removed from the first volume.Henri de Boulainvilliers (1658-1722) was an eclectic philosopher, a historian, an astrologer with scientific pretensions, and a freethinker in religion. The coherence of his works lay in a dramatic effort to reconcile the principles and culture of the nobility with the social, political and cultural tendencies of the modern world. In his early years, his encounter with Baruch de Spinoza's Ethics was decisive. After translating that text into French, he wrote an Essai de Métaphysique that was intended to lift the burden of "mathematical dryness" from Spinoza's thought. Boulainvilliers was one of the aristocratic fathers of the Enlightenment. The philosophes read Spinoza through the intermediary of the Essai de Métaphysique ..... Voltaire used Boulainvillier's name to symbolize free thought in his Diner du Comte de Boulainvilliers. His historical studies influenced Montesquieu and were debated throughout the century (see: Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment, vol. i, pp. 168-9). ‎

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