‎(MIRABEAU, VICTOR DE RIQUETTI, MARQUIS DE.)‎
‎Lettres sur la dépravation de lordre légal. Première partie [- Lettres sur la restauration de lordre légal. Seconde partie]. A Londres, Wilcox, 1769. - (issued after:) ROUSSEAU, Jean Jacques. Discours ..... qui na point encore été imprimé, sur cette question. Quelle est la Vertu la plus nécessaire aux Héros; & quels sont les Héros, à qui cette Vertu a manqué?‎

‎A Amsterdam, Chez J.H. Schneider, 1769. Titles to the Mirabeau printed in red and black, with attractive engraved vignettes. Three volumes bound in one. [4, half-title and title for the Mirabeau], 23, (1) blank [for the Rousseau, including half-title and title]; 186; (2) blank, (6, half-title, title, Avant-Propos), 256 pp. 12mo. Contemporary marbled calf, spine gilt in compartments, label with gilt lettering, a bit worn, top of spine chipped, red edges. Einaudi 3944 (Schneider issue, defective, lacking the fifth letter in second volume of the Mirabeau, and 4900 for the Rousseau); Tchemerzine-Schéler, iv, 756; not in Goldsmiths, Higgs, INED or Kress; not in OCLC or RLIN. For the Lettres sur la législation (1775), of which OCLC locates only 3 copies (Library of Congress, Chicago, Boston), see Goldsmiths 11229; Higgs 6196; INED 3201. First editions in book form, exceptionally rare. The Mirabeau was published again in 1775 under the title Lettres sur la législation ou l'Ordre légal, dépravé, rétabli et perpétué par L. D. H. (L'Ami des Hommes), by which name the work is known today. '"The science of economics is in fact the science of the natural order"; but, the theory of the net product having been elucidated long since, Mirabeau, with the assistance of physiocratic theories, here demonstrates that in social policy truth is to be found solely in nature.'The Ami des Hommes (as Mirabeau often styled himself) thus lays the foundations of a true social order according to the laws of nature (property, liberty, restoration of order) and then goes on to expose the means of keeping it alive, that is by teaching citizens of all classes (both the productive and unproductive classes) the juridical and social principles that the Économistes hold dear (the duties of the landowner, the agricultural system, the use of the Tableau économique, etc.).'This work lays down in detail the moral philosophy of the physiocrats who maintain that the physical social order is identical to the economic order; and that the economic order is wholly entailed by the agricultural one' (INED on the Lettres sur la législation, our translation).The 1769 (possibly pirated) edition is known in two issues; the other is by Schneider in Amsterdam. Both reproduce Mirabeau's text as it originally appeared in the Ephémerides du Citoyen of 1767, but omit the final part of the work (which was published in the Ephémerides from September 1768 - June 1769 and was included in the Lettres sur la législation in 1775). According to Schéler, in his annotated copy of Tchemerzine, there are only a few copies known (he states 3 or 4), regardless of issue, which contain Rousseau's Discours (one could still argue a case for the book's rarity even without the Rousseau consideration). The intention that the two texts be issued together is supported by a printed note at the foot of the final page of the Rousseau: 'On mettra ce Discours à la tête des Lettres sur la Dépravation & la Restauration de l'Ordre légal' (interestingly, there also exists a third issue of the Discours, by Marc Michel Rey in 'Amsterdam', i.e. Lausanne selon Dufour, which does not have this note). The unsolved bibliographical mystery is thus whether Mirabeau and Rousseau decided to have their works published together, or whether the double issue was merely commercial speculation on the side of the publishers. Mirabeau and Rousseau did know each other, Rousseau briefly lived in a property of Mirabeau and there exists correspondence between the two man.Unlike vol. II in the copy described by Schéler (which had an extra page of text pasted onto the blank verso of F1), that of our copy is continuously paginated and collates: p2 A2 B-D12 E6 F-M12, with an initial blank.To our knowledge, there is no copy of the Mirabeau in North America. Apart from that of the Einaudi collection, we were able to locate only 3 copies: the Koninklijke Bibliotheek in The Hague (Schneider), the Feltrinelli library in Milan (Wilcox), and the Biblioteca Estense in Modena (Wilcox). All the libraries also have Rousseau's Discours.In spite of the title's announcement that it had not previously been printed, Rousseau's work was first published in 1768 in volume VIII of Fréron's Année littéraire; it appeared in book form the following year, and Dufour denotes two issues: Amsterdam (i.e. Lausanne), Marc Michel Rey (258), and Amsterdam, Schneider (259). As with the Mirabeau, the Rousseau is very rare: OCLC locates a copy of the Rey issue at Linköping only; NUC also locates an Amsterdam printing (no publisher given), at Wisconsin; it is not listed in RLIN. - With a burnhole to page 135/6 with slight loss; inner margin of half title to the Mirabeau a bit damaged. Title label to spine reads "Oeuvres de Rousseau. Tom VI." ‎

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