Considérations...

3 volumes in 3 octavo volumes consisting of: I/ X pp. and 440 pp.; II/ (2) leaves and 424 pp.; III/ (2) leaves, 395 pp., (1) leaf.
Half-havana calf with corners, smooth spine, title labels in citron morocco, volume numbers in blue morocco, “Bibliothèque d’Hauteville” stamped in gilt at the foot of the spine. Contemporary provenance binding.

191 x 123 mm.

First edition of this Essay, which caused much commotion and was at the origin of the first great intellectual debate on the Revolution.
Clouzot, 255; Martin & Walter, 31988; Tourneux, I, 114; Vicaire, VII, 654; Lonchamp, no.117; En Français dans le texte, 222.

Germaine de Staël composed her literary work on the roads of repeated exile, a result of her political and social liberalism.

A woman of commitment, Madame de Staël, through her writings and the salons she successively hosted in Paris and Coppet, on the shores of Lake Geneva, exerted considerable intellectual influence not only on literature but also on the society of her time.

Originally intended as a political eulogy of her father, Jacques Necker (1732–1804), this work became a true study of the French Revolution.

In it, Mme de Staël considers, with great clarity, the causes and consequences of revolutionary events up to Bonaparte's rise to power and the advent of the Empire.

The book ends with the exposition of the English parliamentary monarchy system, thus closing the whole of her work with praise for the country she admired above all others.

The public received the work enthusiastically.

“This famous work fixed the liberal interpretation of the French Revolution by dissociating 1789, for the first time boldly rehabilitated, from 1793” (Yvert, Politique libérale, no. 24).

“Daughter of Necker, popular minister and celebrated woman of letters, Madame de Staël was a mind of the highest order” (Carteret).

“At once political, philosophical, literary, and critical, her work possesses remarkable harmony and a great freedom of thought. Mme de Staël, witness to historic events and passionate about politics, treated them extensively. In Considerations on the Revolution, she provides a major ideological study from the 1780s to the beginning of the Restoration” (En Français dans le texte).

Rare copy preserved in its contemporary bindings with provenance: “Bibliothèque d’Hauteville”.

Originally from France—from Lacaune, in the diocese of Castres—Philippe Cannac (1672–1750), from a family of Huguenot bankers, left the country after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes to take refuge in Switzerland, at the Hauteville estate.

Hauteville was not enough for the ambition of its new owner. He commissioned a young architect from Lyon, Donat Cochet, to design plans for a French-style château to accommodate his family.

Pierre-Philippe Cannac died in 1785 and left the estate to his eldest son, M. de S^t-Légier. His granddaughter, Anne-Philippine-Victoire, married Daniel Grand de la Chaise (1761–1828) and inherited the estate in 1794. It was then that the young couple decided to take the name Grand d’Hauteville.

At the beginning of the 19th century, under the impetus of Daniel and Victoire, the château d’Hauteville became a center of society and social events, hosting illustrious visitors from the diplomatic scene and royalty, with balls and theatrical evenings held frequently.

In 1811, the daughter of Daniel and Victoire married her cousin Eric Grand, son of Jean-François-Paul Grand de Valency and Marie Labhard de Glarisseg, counselor of legation and godson of Baron de Staël, the husband of the woman Rosalie de Constant called the “too famous”. Mme Robert Rilliet, née Catherine Huber, cousin of Mme d’Hauteville, recounted the events with emotion and poetry. A childhood friend of Germaine Necker and close confidante throughout the life of the author of Corinne, Mme Rilliet had a remarkable dual philanthropic and social activity in both Paris and Geneva. Her large black eyes and butterfly grace charmed all. She spoke with a perhaps overly refined manner, and Benjamin Constant assured that she “has all the virtues she claims.”