A Paris, Chez Denys Moreau, 1632. Avec Privilège du Roy. 8vo.
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Dictionnaire de la langue Huronne, Nécessaire à ceux qui n’ont l’intelligence d’icelle, & ont à traiter avec les Sauvages du pays. Par Fr. Gabriel Sagard, Recollet de S. François, de la Province de S. Denys.
A Paris, Chez Denis Moreau, 1632. Avec Privilège du Roy. 8vo.
Two parts in 1 volume 8vo.
Collated complete:
-Voyage: frontispiece engraved by Jaspar Isac (this frontispiece depicts savages, on the sides are figures of St. Francis and Blessed Brother Martin de Valence, founder of the Franciscan missions in America); title; 2 ll. for an epistle “Au roy des roys et tout puissant monarque du ciel et de la terre, sauveur du monde”; 2 ll. for an epistle: “A tres illustre, genereux et puissant prince, Henry de Lorraine, comte d’Arcourt”; 3 ll. for a notice “Au lecteur”; 3 ll. for the Table, Privilege and Approval; together 12 prel. ll. ; 380 pp., followed by 2 bl. ll. The privilege, dated July 21, 1632, is granted for ten years to Sagard, who declares that he is assigning it to Denys Moreau. Imprint dated August 10, 1632.
The Approval of the Fathers de l’ordre is signed by Fr. Ignace Le Gault, “gardien du couvent des recollets de Paris”. Fr. Jean-Marie l’Escrivain and Fr. Ange Carrier.
-Dictionnaire de la langue Huronne: 12 pp. (including title) and (66) ll. 7 ll. of table; thus complete. Restorations: lateral margin of the first text leaf without loss of letters; the end of the lower right-hand corner of the following 4 leaves without affecting the text, lateral margin of the first title page without loss of letters, and of the frontispiece with marginal loss, few light stains and waterstains on a few leaves; full contemporary vellum. Original binding with restored but authentic lack of vellum (Contemporary binding).
174 x 105 mm.
First edition of one of the most important French voyages to North America and especially Canada, of the utmost rarity, preserved as the present copy in its first contemporary vellum binding.
“This travel is curious and copies are very rare; but it’s only in recent years that the price has risen extraordinarily...” wrote Brunet (V, 28-29) 159 years ago.
“Le Grand Voyage” is listed as Number One in the Clements Library’s One Hundred Michigan Rarities ». (Lande).
« Six chapters recount the ocean crossing, the journey from Quebec to the “lac des Hurons”, and the author’s return to France. The remainder of the work studies the Huron customs and way of life, and the flora and fauna of the country. It is a brilliant, astonishingly precise fresco… » (DCB).
“This is one of the most important of the early works on the north American Indians, and (contains) the first printed huron vocabulary”. (Church).
“The author of this work,” says Charlevoix, ”lived among the Hurons for some time, and naively recounts everything he saw and heard about the place, but he didn’t have the time to see things well enough, let alone verify everything he was told. The Huron Vocabulary, which he left us, proves that neither he nor any of those he consulted knew the language well, which is very difficult; consequently, the conversions of the Savages were not numerous in his time. Moreover, he is a very judicious man, and very zealous, not only for the salvation of souls, but also for the progress of a colony, which he had almost seen born, and which he saw almost suffocated in its cradle, by the invasion of the English.”
“A work of great interest and importance. Copies are rarely found in good condition, and perfect in every respect. » (Sabin).
“All we have been able to learn about the author is that he was already a Minor Recollet, but from the Province of S. Denis, when in 1615, Houël, Secretary to Louis XIII, obtained that the Company ask Father Chapoin to send several religious to Canada. Sagard was eager to take part in this first mission, which was entrusted, as we said earlier, to PP. Jamet, Dolbeau, le Caron and du Plessis. The zealous Recollet was not able to put his project into effect until eight years later, when, in the company of Fr. Nicolas Viel, he set out, he says, “from our Convent in Paris on the 18th of March 1623, on the Apostolic, on foot and without money, according to the custom of the poor Minor Recollects, and we arrived in Dieppe in good health, where we were barely able to take some rest before we had to embark on the same day”.
Precious volume “of the greatest rarity”. Chadenat, 5739.
Leclerc (Bibliotheca Americana) held an incomplete missing the title.
Chadenat owned Sagard’s two great books in uniform 19th century binding from the library of the Comte de Lignerolles (N° 5739: Le grand voyage du pays des Hurons; N° 5740: Histoire du Canada); they were sold for around 250,000 FF each on March 13, 1950, a considerable price at the time: at the same Chadenat sale, Champlain’s extremely rare Voyage of 1627, complete and in antique calf, sold for 37,000 FF (n° 5340), and the famous Champlain 4to from 1640 with the folding map, bound in fine contemporary vellum, reached 100,000 FF (n°5341). The latter is now selling for € 250,000.
I acquired this copy in its absolutely unrestored genuine condition, bound in its slightly loose vellum binding.
Alden 632-/86. Arents 181. Banks p. 86. Bell S33, Church 421. Dionne Il 87-88. Field 1341-42. Harrisse 52-53. JCB II 243-44. Lande S2012. Pilling, Iroquoian, p. 147. Sabin 74883 & 74881. Streeter 193. Vlach 661. Cf. Gagnon I 3120 & cf. TPL 32. DCB I pp. 590-592. Story p. 736. Winsor IV 290. Chadenat 5739. Leclerc 786.
