Vie de Madame la Dauphine, mère de S. M. Louis XVIII
Very rare first edition by Abbé Sicard, famous for his instruction of the Deaf and Mute, bound in contemporary morocco with the arms of Madame Royale, imprisoned in the Temple in 1792 with Marie Antoinette, her mother, and Louis XVI.
12mo, (3) leaves including the portrait frontispiece of Marie-Josèphe de Saxe and 176 pages.
Havana morocco, gilt and blind-tooled fillet borders on covers, gilt coat of arms stamped at center, spine decorated with blind-stamped fleurons and gilt fillets, chevroned endbands, dots on board edges, gilt fillet on the inside border with blue paper endpapers, all edges gilt.
Armorial binding of the period signed by Duplanil fils.
168 x 96 mm.
Sicard (Abbé Augustin). Life of Madame la Dauphine, mother of H.M. Louis XVIII; containing an unpublished education plan, drawn up in her own hand, for Monseigneur the Dauphin, later Louis XVI; an excerpt from her Funeral Oration […] delivered in 1816, before her Royal Highness Madame, Duchess of Angoulême.
Lyon, Rolland, 1822.
Very rare first edition of this educational treatise for “Monseigneur the Dauphin, who became Louis XVI”, the work of Abbé Sicard who learned the art of teaching the deaf and mute from Abbé de l’Épée.
After Abbé de l'Epée died on December 23, 1789, Abbé Sicard was appointed to head the Paris school, which the law of July 21-27, 1791 turned into a national institution.
On August 26, 1792, Abbé Sicard was arrested, charged with having given shelter to refractory priests.
Precious and beautiful copy bound in period citron morocco by Duplanil, with his signature on the spine of the volume, the official binder of the Duchess of Angoulême whose coat of arms it bears.
Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte of France (1778-1851), eldest daughter of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, called Madame, Madame Première, and Madame Royale, was imprisoned in the Temple with her family in 1792; she was exchanged on December 26, 1795 for the Convention commissioners handed over to the Austrians by Dumouriez. Very energetic and deeply attached to Louis XVIII, she lived with him and married Louis Antoine d’Artois, Duke of Angoulême, eldest son of the Count of Artois, future Charles X, on June 19, 1799; she returned to France in 1814 and held the title of Madame until Louis XVIII’s death. She became Dauphine upon her father-in-law’s accession to the throne, on September 16, 1824.
Precious and highly sought-after royal provenance.
From the library of Henri Béraldi, with ex-libris.
