‎(BOUFFONIDOR.)‎
‎Les fastes de Louis XV, de ses Ministres, Maîtresses, Généraux, et autres notables personnages de son Regne. Premiere [- Seconde] Partie.‎

‎A Ville-Franche, Chez la Veuve Liberté, 1782. Two volumes. civ, 350 pp.; (4), [351]-750 pp. Small 8vo. Contemporary blind paper covers, paper labels to spines, loss of paper to spines, rubbed and worn, cords intact, an uncut copy. Conlon 82:851; Barbier, ii, col. 435; Cioranescu 13174; Peignot, ii, 224 (attributing the work to a certain de Levy); Darnton, The Corpus of Clandestine Literature in France 1769-1789, 255 (attribution to Ange Goudar !); Mars, 152 (but with an * which denotes "uncertain attribution"); Weller, 217. Rare first edition of one of the most successful libels published in the 2nd half of the 18th-century. One of the remarkable features of these "libels" was the fact that they had a political meaning, which made them different from the chroniques scandaleuses with which they can be compared as far as the preference for scandals goes. And it was precisely this combination of suggested objective history and the "revelation" of the private sins of persons of importance (ministers, members of the royal family, indeed the King himself, etc.) through with these "libels" desecrated the ruling powers and authorities. "Although the book presented itself as an objective history of Louis's reign, it treated the reader to a scabrous inside account of his sex life" (R. Darnton, The Literary Underground of the Old Regime, p. 145 ff.) Darnton's analysis of this and other works sold in the days of the Ancien Régime, the trade, distribution, numbers of copies sold, and the disastrous effects these books had on the way people viewed authority, the King, the court and the magistracy, is not just fascinating reading but also shows how now forgotten authors and books provided "news" and effectively undermined the authority of the regime.The pages ix-civ contain "Coup d'oeil sur l'histoire de Louis XV, pour servir d'instruction, de commentaire & de supplément à cet ouvrage." - Internally a fine copy. ‎

Reference : 26346

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