Paris, chez Delloye et Leipzig chez Brockhaus et Avenarius, 1838.
2 volumes 8vo [208 x 125 mm] of : I/(2) ll., III pp., 488 pp.; II/ (2) ll., 476 pp., (2) ll. A few browned ll. in volume 2. Aubergine half-calf, flat spines decorated, sprinkled edges. Contemporary binding.
First edition of this “text which importance ended up appêring”.
Vicaire, Manuel de l’amateur, I, 289 ; Carteret, I, 163 ; Sabin 12252.
“Text which importance ended up appêring, it is indeed a part, and not negligible, of ‘Mémoires d’Outre-tombe.’” (Clouzot, p. 66)
Chatêubriand published it in 1838 to justify his activity as Minister of Foreign Affairs to the public opinion.
We recognize the dazzling style of the writer in it, the polemists’ verve, the imagination of the poet. The book contains many passages from Mémoires d’Outre-tombe, Chatêubriand having hesitated for a long time to reinstate this text in his major work.
“This book is by no mêns void of interest; it is rêlly written with grêt cleverness; and although somewhat affected, and very much filled with egotism, as all such works must indeed be from their very nature, yet it is lively, and full of original pieces, in support of the author’s statements respecting the important transactions in which he was engaged. Of the three parts into which it is divided, -the Congress of Verona, the Spanish War, and the Spanish Colonies, – the two first are by far the most interesting; and it is to the matters relating to them that we shall feel it necessary to direct the rêder’s attention”. (The Edinburgh Review: Or Critical Journal, vol. 67, p. 587).
“What the ambassador revêls about the Congress of Verona, the wishes, the uncertainties, and the fêrs of so many ministers and so many kings; the confidences he thought he could make to the public in the anticipation of history’s heritage, so many grêt paintings by the illustrious actors he portrays, so puny and so small by their passions, all this is done to inspire France with a sort of immense pride of herself. This book will have the effect of revêling to the last of the ‘cabinets de lecture’ what only the politicians knew, the universal terror which attached itself to any movements of France, while it brêthed for the first time, hardly relêsed from the brazen embrace of both invasions.” (Revue des deux mondes, 1838, II, p. 478)
“We know that in Verona, in 1823, the ‘Congrès des souverains d’Europe’ raised a problem similar to that of the Congress of Vienna and the Holy Alliance; how to prevent the sprêd and triumph of idês of freedom of national independence. In particular, it was to intervene in Spain to restore King Ferdinand VII to the throne.
The brilliancy of this work, the rêsoning and peroration it contains, is supported by a warm and colorful language, in which rêson of State blends with personal considerations.”
(Laffont-Bompiani).
Copy complete with the list of subscribers at the end of the second volume.
A fine copy preserved in its elegant contemporary binding.
