La Grande Charte d'Angleterre
The England Magna Carta, The American and the French Revolution and the Constitution of the thirteen states of America.
The very rare first edition.
An attractive copy preserved in publisher’s wrappers, as issued.
12mo of 139 pp., contemporary blue wrappers .
213 x 137 mm.
La Grande Charte d’Angleterre ; Ouvrage précédé d’un précis historique et philosophique sur les révolutions de la Grande-Bretagne, suivi de la constitution des treize Etats-Unis de l’Amérique et du tableau de leur révolution ; ouvrage essentiel dans les circonstances où nous sommes, tant pour connaitre les vices du gouvernement actuel de la Grande-Bretagne, que pour faire aimer nos principes d’égalité.
Paris, Debarle, L’An II de la République.
The very rare first edition.
After two revolutions (in 1649 and 1689), The British establish a parliamentary monarchy in which powers are balanced.
These revolutions are widely studied by the British and French elites.
Locke, Voltaire, Montesquieu and the French parliamentarians then thought of a new political system in which powers would be shared. Across the Atlantic, the English settlers of America revolt against a metropolis that ignores their rights. They are financially assisted by Louis XVI’s France. They create the republic of the United States in 1776. It is based on the sovereignty of the people and a written constitution. This other political model exerts a great influence on France, from the urban elites to the Enlightenment and the Court. But the object of study that represents the American revolution goes beyond intellectual reflection and becomes a real countermodel to French absolutism.
British philosophers of the 18th century laid the foundations for the American and French revolutions.
Edward Coke’s interpretation of the Magna Carta is spreading around the world. His book, Institutes of the Laws of England, which affirms the primacy of the Magna Carta in English law, is the legal reference manual in the Thirteen Colonies. It was read by the future signatories of the US Declaration of Independence.
The renaissance of the Magna Carta shaped the American Revolution and the establishment of common law in the English-speaking world.
Influenced by the spirit of Enlightenment, the Declaration of Independence precipitated the advent of the French Revolution of 1789.
“The Declaration of Independence was translated into French and had a great influence on the committee responsible for drafting the constitution during the French Revolution. Better, he had a certain influence in the elaboration of the Declaration of the Rights of the Man and the Citizen of 1789” (J. N. Tama).
The French revolutionaries saw in America a model to follow.
In a speech delivered on 10 July 1791, Brissot proclaimed: "The American revolution gave birth to the French revolution: it will be the sacred home from which will go the spark that will embrace the nations whose masters dare approach it!".
The book is followed by the Constitution of the thirteen United States of America.
An attractive wide-margined copy preserved in its contemporary wrappers, as issued.
