‎(FRANKLIN, B.)‎
‎La science du bonhomme Richard, ou moyen facile de payer les impôts. Traduit de l'Anglois. Seconde édition exactement semblable à la première. A Philadelphie, et se trouve à Paris, chez Ruault, 1778. - (Bound with:) LE SEURE. Testament politique de M. de Silhouette.‎

‎No place, 1772. 2 works bound in 1 volume. 151, (5, publisher's catalogue) pp.; 156, 3 pp. 12mo. Contemporary marbled calf, spine gilt in compartments, gilt lettering, marbled edges. First work: Fay 10.; Sabin 25583; cf.: Kress B.122 (incomplete copy); Goldsmiths 11761 (lacking last 5 pp.); this edition not in Einaudi. Second French edition, first published in 1777. The translation is by F.A. Quétant & J.B. Lecuy. The work had a tremendous and instaneous appeal as a sort of gospel of the virtues of bourgeois thrift and common sense (see at length: Echeverria, Mirage in the West.) Includes, apart from "La Science ...." also: 'Interrogatoire de M. Franklin devant le Parlement d'Angleterre' (translated by P.S. Dupont de Nemours), followed by 'Constitution de la République de Pensylvanie, telle qu'elle a été établie par la Commission générale de Philadelphie, au mois de juillet 1776' and followed by 'L'interrogatoire de M. Penn à la Barre du Parlement au mois de novembre de la même année.'Second work: INED 2863; not in Kress; not in Higgs; not in Einaudi; not in Goldsmiths. First edition. Etienne Silhouette, to a certain extent influenced by the ideas of Fr. Quesnay, was controleur-général des finances in 1759. He planned to tax the land property of the nobility and to reduce pensions, which provoked his disgrace. - With label J.S. Dussi on front paste-down. A very nice copy. ‎

Reference : 18735

‎‎