Recueil d'oraisons funèbres

12mo of 3 ff.; 165 pp.; 1 f.; 446 pp.

Red morocco, triple gilt fillet framing the covers, armorial device in the center, spine with raised bands and gilt decoration, gilt edges. Contemporary binding.

172 x 98 mm.

Bossuet. Collection of Funeral Orations delivered by Messire Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux.

Paris, Desaint & Saillant. 1762,

“One of the best editions of Bossuet’s Collection of Funeral Orations is the Paris, Desprez, 1762 edition, with the abridged history of the lives of the subjects by Abbé Lequeux” (Brunet, I, 1133).

The abridged history of the life and death of the subjects occupies here pages XIX to CLXV.

The volume contains the six famous funeral orations of Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet:

Funeral Oration for Madame Henrietta Maria of France, Queen of England.

Funeral Oration for Madame Henrietta Anne of England, Duchess of Orléans.

Funeral Oration for Madame Maria Theresa of Austria, Queen of France.

Funeral Oration for Madame Anne de Gonzague de Clèves, Princess Palatine.

Funeral Oration for Messire Michel le Tellier, Chancellor of France.

Funeral Oration for Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Condé, First Prince of the Blood.

The Christian funeral oration was brought by Bossuet to such a high level, not only of magnificence but of perfection, that the genre, so to speak, became identified with him.

Bossuet made it truly new. With him, the funeral oration would no longer be merely a eulogy; it would first and foremost be a sermon.

His praise is always measured and in accordance with the truth as he knows it. The faults and errors of his subjects are even mentioned. But when “he must, as he says, speak of things about which he would wish to remain eternally silent,” he does so with the discretion dictated by propriety and courtesy. Panegyric has different laws from proper history. Bossuet, as he should, does not say everything, but he says nothing contrary to what he has learned through thorough investigation. He is therefore truthful when he asserts: “We do not offer false praise before these altars.”

Nowhere, better than in the funeral oration, did Bossuet reveal himself as a poet, a lyrical poet, a dramatic poet, an epic poet. This is true of his imagination, his sensibility, and even the rhythm of his sentences which, according to the variety of feelings expressed, has in turn resounding brilliance, musical sweetness, and rhythmic movement, irresistibly recalling Hugo and Lamartine.

Precious copy bound in contemporary red morocco with the arms of Marie-Thérèse of Savoy, third daughter of Victor Amadeus III, Duke of Savoy and King of Sardinia, and of Maria Antoinetta Fernanda, Infanta of Spain, born in Turin on January 31, 1756. She married, on November 16, 1773, at Versailles, Charles-Philippe, Count of Artois, later Charles X. She died at Gratz (Austria) on June 2, 1805, leaving two sons, the Duke of Angoulême and the Duke of Berry.

Her library, assembled by her secretary Félix Nogaret, was one of the most important of the period; the books were generally bound in red morocco and, apart from a triple fillet, had no other ornamentation.

From the library of Edouard Rahir with ex libris (No. 987 of May 5, 1936).