Paris, Le Normant Fils, 1818-1820.
Parts 1 to 78 (complete) in 6 8vo volumes [203 x 123 mm] of: I/ 632 pp.; II/ 656 pp., wrong pagination pp. 97 to 112 without loss; III/ 624 pp., last l. of table torn; IV/ 640 pp.; V/ 632 pp., the 16th squire has been bound twice instead of the 15th squire; VI/ 640 pp. Bound in green half-calf, flat spine decorated with gilt fillets, mottled edges. Contemporary binding.
Rare complete collection of the 78 parts of the ultra royalist paper « Le Conservateur » of which Chateaubriand was the leader.
Faced with the success of the liberal paper La Minerve, the royalist party did not want to remain unarmed and its members have decided to create a paper entitled Le Conservateur.
The first founders of the periodic were Messrs de Bruges, de Talaru, de Polignac, de Vitrolles, rejoints par la suite par MM. de Chateaubriand, Fiévée, de Villèle… This newspaper gathered from October 1818 to March 1820 the best pens of the ultras: cardinal de la Luzerne, l’abbe de Lamennais, le duc de Fitz-James, le marquis d’Herbouville, le comte de Salaberry, les vicomtes de Bonald et de Castelbajac, Genoude, Berryer fils, etc.
This is how was founded the paper which first number was published on October 8th, 1818 with the motto « Le Roi, la Charte et les Honnêtes Gens ». This number was opening with a letter of Chateaubriand’s editor, followed by an answer of the latter in which he presented with his regular talent the project of the new paper and the line he intended to follow. “(…) The Conservateur will support religion, the King, freedom, the Charter and honest people”. It had both a great success among the press but also in the opinion since it had an notable impact on the public. The paper was printed in three thousand copies for the first parts, and then fluctuated between seven thousand and eight thousand five hundred in November 1818. It stopped being published when censorship was restored in February 1820 after the duke of Berry was murdered. This resolution was announced to the subscribers by a letter from Chateaubriand finishing the 78th and last part. Once dissolved, some of his redactors, among who was leading Lamenais, founded Le Defenseur (1820-1821) (Hatin, pp. 338-340).
In his Mémoires d’Outre-tombe, Chateaubriand considers that the “revolution operated by this paper was incredible: in France, it changed half of the Chambers; abroad it transformed the spirit of cabinets.”
A beautiful copy preserved in its elegant contemporary green half-calf bindings.
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