Procès des Bourbons

2 volumes octavo: I/ (2) leaves, (12) pages, 397 pages and 2 plates; II/ (2) leaves, 436 pages and 7 plates.

Blonde calf, triple gilt fillet framing the covers, centrally stamped gilt armorials, smooth spines decorated, red and green morocco labels for title and volume number, decorated edges, gilt inner roll, red edges. Armorial binding of the period.

202 x 127 mm.

Turbat. Trials of the Bourbons containing historical details on the day of August 10, 1792, the events that preceded, accompanied, and followed the trial of Louis XVI, the trials of Marie Antoinette, Louis-Philippe d'Orléans, Élisabeth, and several particularities about the illness and death of Louis-Charles, son of Louis XVI; the exchange of Marie-Charlotte, and the departure of the last members of the family for Spain.

New edition, revised, corrected, and expanded with a number of important documents that have not yet been printed. With illustrations.

Hamburg, 1798.

Very rare original collective edition. France was not ready for self-criticism and the book was published in Hamburg, which explains its absence from the main bibliographies consulted.

The two volumes contain 6 mezzotint engraved portraits (Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, Louis XVII, the Duke of Orléans, Madame Royale, and Madame Élisabeth) as well as 3 beautiful scenes engraved depicting the most poignant moments of the farewells.

"It is not an abridged history of the Revolution that we intended to offer the public. Such a great, such a noble subject, requires to be engraved by more skillful hands.

It was enough for us to recount the causes of the most astonishing revolution, the various events that led to the fall of a throne founded on fourteen centuries, and the unfortunate end of the last king of the French and his closest kin.

Truth, accuracy, and precision; these are, we dare say, the qualities that will distinguish our work from most of the shapeless histories that have appeared so far regarding the various events of the Revolution.

Free in our writings as in our thoughts, we have expressed ourselves with candor about men and things; our pen did not tremble before the obscurity of the future. In order to fulfill the task we had set ourselves, we had to uncover the intrigues and portray with vigor the rage and crimes of all parties: we have done so; our truthfulness will not displease free men. No one can deny that the Republic emerged, majestic, from the chaos of passions, as the world did from the chaos of the elements. What do we care about all the shameful crimes of a few ambitious revolutionaries, since the Revolution brought us liberty, since the love of country—of which it was, so to speak, the lever—placed us above the most warlike peoples, and already shows us to astonished posterity as greater, more generous, than those famous Romans who forced even kings to admire them?

All the facts that will be read in our work are of an authenticity that admits no doubt: documents literally taken from the registers of the municipality of Paris and of the Revolutionary Tribunal will sufficiently guarantee their accuracy. Moreover, our contemporaries, witnesses of the same events, will be our first judges: we leave to them the charge of determining the degree of confidence that should be granted to us ."

Very fine copy bearing the arms of Marie-Thérèse de Savoie, Countess of Artois, sister-in-law of Louis XVI and wife of the future Charles X, who escaped the revolutionaries by emigrating.

(O. Hermal, plate 2551, variant of tool 7).

According to a note, this precious copy also belonged to Princess Mathilde under the Second Empire.