[WICQUEFORT, Abraham de]. Advis fidelle aux véritables Hollandois. Touchant ce qui s’est passé dans les Villages de Bodegrave & Swammerdam, & les cruautés inoüies, que les François y ont exercées. N.p. [The Hague], [Jean et Daniel Steucker], 1673.
4to [230 x 180 mm] of (2) bl.ll., (1) l. of title, 202 pp., (2) bl.ll. and 10 engravings on 8 double-pages. The title is decorated with a sphere. Bound in full stiff contemporary vellum, flat spine. Contemporary binding.
First edition and first issue of this set of engravings by Romeyn de Hooghe condemning Louis XIV’s exactions. Willems, Les Elzevier, 1874 (for the 12mo print); Catalogue du Baron de Ruble, 669 (for the 12mo print); Picot, Catalogue Rothschild, 2407; Rahir, La Bibliothèque de l’amateur, 683; Bulletin Morgand et Fatout, 8744; Barbier, Dictionnaire des ouvrages anonymes, I, 368; Brunet, I, 589; Graesse, Trésor de livres rares, 22; Landwehr, Romeyn de Hooghe, n°30.
This account of the retreat of the duke of Luxembourg’s army, forced to leave Holland because of the thaw following a victorious march towards The Hague, was written to encourage the Dutch to resist. We can find the story of the atrocities perpetrated by the French troops.
“The ‘Bibliothèque historique de la France’ reports a quite singular particularity about this work: the Dutch were said to hand it out in schools, when they were at war against France, in order to elate the imagination of children who then roused their parents’ hatred against French people and made easy the levying of subsidy. Once peace was gained, they would remove the book.” (Ch. Nodier, Catalogue des livres de Pixérécourt, 1935).
“There is on the same date a 4to edition, illustrated with eight beautiful engravings by Romeyn de Hooghe. Both come unquestionably from the Steucker brothers’ press, and they are indeed mentioned in the 1674 catalogue with the address of The Hague… Barbier attributes the Advis fidelle to Abr. de Wicquefort. But doubts were raised in Holland about this attribution.” (Willems, Les Elzevier, 1874).
“The edition comes from the press of the brothers Jean and Daniel Steucker in The Hague […] Many of the figures bear Romeyn de Hooghe’s signature written in full. The ‘advis fidelle’ is usually attributed to the famous Abraham de Wicquefort, the ambiguous person who served successively Brandenburg, France, the Dutch Republic and Brunswick, was condemned as a traitor by the Dutch in 1675, and went to die miserably in Zell in 1682; but this attribution is today highly disputed.” (Picot, 2407).
“A sought-after volume because of the figures of which it is illustrated. The 1673 edition, small 12mo, with no figures, has no value”(Brunet).
