Les Évolutions militaires

1 large quarto volume, (2) ff., (2) blank ff., 141 ff.
Red morocco, covers fully decorated with gilt fleurons and pointillé, double gilt fillet border, spine with raised bands richly decorated, decorated edges, inner gilt roll, gilt edges. Rich decorative binding made around 1671.

292 x 217 mm.

Beaufort, Louis-Hardouin de Groult de (1654-1694). Military Evolutions containing the orders to form up in battle, set up camp, billet, and fight, both cavalry and infantry. Made by Sieur de Beaufort, Master of War Exercises to the King.
Completed on the first of March 1671 in Paris.

Complete original manuscript of the "Master of War Exercises to King Louis XIV", Louis-Hardouin de Groult de Beaufort, calligraphed on very large Dutch paper, including 1 title leaf, 1 leaf decorated with the family coat of arms, 138 pages of text, 3 leaves of table of contents, adorned with 112 original pen drawings by Albert Flamen (1620-1674), the famous Flemish-born draughtsman and engraver.

Louis-Hardouin de Groult-de-Beaufort, Esquire, Lord of Bretonville, Nefle… succeeded his father in the office of Master of War Exercises to the King, was Second Lieutenant in the Dauphin Regiment, Infantry, in 1667, Ensign in 1670, Captain in 1672, Major in 1673; then employed successfully in Engineering; served as Chief Engineer under Marshal Vauban at the Fortifications of Ghent, Oudenaarde & at the siege of Besançon, where he was wounded in the right hand by a grenade, leaving him maimed; which forced him to retire from service, with the Cross of Saint Louis, the King’s favor, & provided with honorable certificates from his Generals, Marshal d’Uxelles & Marshal Vauban. Letters from these two Generals are preserved in the family, as well as from Messrs. de Saint-Aignan, Turenne, Louvois, Villeroy, d’Harcourt, which prove the esteem & regard the ministers & generals had for him. He died in 1694, and had married, in 1680, Marie-Madeleine Pinson, daughter of Jacques Pinson, Esquire, Secretary to the King.

Albert Flamen practiced his art in Paris especially from the 1640s onward. In 1648, he published the Devices and Moralized Emblems of Love, an emblematic work that would be reprinted several times (1650, 1653, 1666, 1672), and for which he admitted he was not the author of the two texts accompanying each of the elegant engravings he had created.

Of Albert Flamen’s personal life we know little, except that throughout his career, documented from 1648 to 1669, he appears to have lived in the parish of Saint-Sulpice in Paris, rue des Fossoyeurs, married to a certain Françoise Lamoureux, neighbors of other well-known engravers.

It is known that he painted some portraits, and that he worked in 1650 for the Gobelins tapestry manufactory in Paris; but it is above all as an engraver that he became known and remains famous, most of the time after his own drawings. Several series of engravings were originally published by himself and at his own home; others first appeared at Jacques Lagniet, Louis Boissevin, Jean van Merlen, Pierre Mariette, and later at Drevet, Gallois, or others. His production is substantial, to the point that as early as 1841 Robert-Dumesnil catalogued 584 of his engravings.

His style has been compared to that of Wenceslas Hollar, and to that of Jacques Callot for landscapes.

In addition to a series of 11 landscapes, often architectural, most of Albert Flamen’s original pen drawings, all signed “M. Flamen fecit Invet”, illustrate military exercises.

These superb drawings are generally full-page, sometimes even on folding plates.

To rediscover in the 21st century an original manuscript by an officer of King Louis XIV adorned with 112 original drawings by Albert Flamen is a real pleasure.