Mémoires historiques sur Louis XVII
First edition printed on large vellum paper, bound at the time by Thouvenin in morocco with royal arms.
Octavo, red morocco gilt-tooled with a roll around the boards, fleur-de-lys at the corners, spine with raised bands decorated with gilt fleur-de-lys, the crowned royal cipher and royal arms, gilt edges, inner roll, doublure and endpapers of violet moiré silk, all edges gilt. Period binding signed by Thouvenin.
210 x 125 mm.
Eckard, Jean. Historical Memoirs on Louis XVII, King of France and Navarre with notes and supporting documents, adorned with His Majesty’s portrait, dedicated and presented to Her Royal Highness, Madame Duchess of Angoulême by Mr. Eckard, former lawyer.
Paris, 1816.
Original edition of the Historical Memoirs on Louis XVII, a work by Jean Eckard, born in 1761 in Versailles, collaborator of the Biographie Universelle.
In this work, Eckard set out to prove the falsity of various commonly held beliefs regarding the death of this young prince. Some people, among other things, believed that the Dauphin’s body had been dissected in the presence of the surgeon Dussault, and that the latter died the next day, poisoned by agents of the Convention for having said that Louis XVII’s end had been hastened. Eckard demonstrates the falsity of this opinion by proving that Dussault’s death preceded that of the Dauphin by eight days.
The edition, dedicated to Her Royal Highness Madame Duchess of Angoulême, is adorned with a portrait of Louis XVII.
The style, quite lively, reads as follows: “Louis XVII lived only ten years and a few months; he bore the title of King for only a very short time, without exercising the august functions thereof. Hence, some publicists have inferred that his life provided few materials for the eager writer wishing to recount it. Nevertheless, it would be difficult to find in History, both ancient and modern, a subject which in a more horrible, more interesting, and more certain manner, demonstrates the wickedness of men and the emptiness of grandeur. What events to consider! A King, heir to sixty-six Kings, deprived of everything! Without relatives, without friends, without a refuge! Atoning, as if it were a crime, for his illustrious birth! And ending, after an agony of four years, by dying in chains!”
Superb copy printed on large vellum paper, preserved in its period binding with royal arms, signed by Thouvenin.
