- 6 volumes in-12. Suivi de :
– Lettres de Madame de Maintenon. Contenant Des Lettres à différentes personnes, celles à Mr. d’Aubigné, & celles à Mr. & Me. de Villette.
- 9 volumes in-12.
Set of 15 volumes 12mo, full green morocco, gilt border around the covers, gilt arms in the center, spines with raised bands, decorated edges, pink taffeta doublures and guards, gilt edges. Armorial binding attributable to Simier, bookbinder to the king.
160 x 92 mm.
A marvelous copy admirably bound in green morocco of the famous correspondence of Françoise d’Aubigné (1635-1719), granddaughter of the Huguenot poet Théodore Agrippa d’Aubigné, who married the writer Paul Scarron and later became the Marquise de Maintenon by the favor of Louis XIV.
While the Letters of Madame de Sévigné rightly enjoy greater fame due to their colorful verve, those written by the founder of the Collège de Saint-Cyr, and whose publication did not occur until 1752, surpass the former in clarity and rigor of reasoning. An unhappy youth (Françoise d’Aubigné was born in the prison where her father was detained), the spiritual struggles endured during her conversion to Catholicism, her marriage to Scarron, an eternal invalid who soon left her a widow, tempered the character of this courageous woman. She was to find her true vocation in the tasks of education, to which she passionately devoted herself, as evidenced by her work entitled Esprit de l’Institut des filles de Saint-Louis.
After her secret marriage to Louis XIV, which allowed her to play an important role in the history of the Monarchy, she was entrusted with the education of the sons that the King had with the Marquise de Montespan and was thus able to put her gifts into practice. Her Letters reveal a perpetual aspiration to goodness and a remarkable spiritual elevation for the time. Among the most beautiful, one can cite the epistle addressed to the famous courtesan Ninon de Lenclos (1616-1706), as well as the one concerning the Divine Consolation, intended for the Marquise’s own brother. Equally worthy of admiration are the letter to Madame de Maison-Fort, a nun of Saint-Cyr, on the vanity of the world and the confidence that should be placed in virtue, and especially the famous letter composed in 1700 for the Duchess of Burgundy on the occasion of her marriage.
All this correspondence constitutes a precious document on the education of young girls and a sincere testimony to the spiritual life of Madame de Maintenon in the pompous ambience of the sun King’s court.
Precious and beautiful copy bound in green morocco with the arms of the duchess of Berry.
Marie-Caroline-Ferdinande-Louise de Bourbon-Sicile, daughter of Ferdinand I, King of the Two Sicilies, and Marie-Clémentine, Archduchess of Austria, born in Naples on November 5, 1798, married on June 17, 1816, Charles-Ferdinand d’Artois, Duke of Berry, second son of the future Charles X, who was assassinated on February 13, 1820.
The Duchess of Berry, widowed at 22, devoted herself to the education of her two children, Louise-Marie-Thérèse d’Artois and Henri-Charles-Ferdinand-Marie-Dieudonné, Duke of Bordeaux, born posthumously; very courageous, she tried in 1832 to foment a legitimist uprising in the Vendée which failed; betrayed on November 7 of the same year, she was imprisoned in the citadel of Blaye where she gave birth to a daughter by Count Hector Lucchesi-Palli, whom she had secretly married in 1831; released in June 1833, she was kept away by the royal family and saw the direction of her son’s education taken from her. She lived in Venice and died on April 17, 1870, at the Château de Brunsee in Styria.
This princess, with very developed artistic tastes, had first established in her Château de Rosny, near Mantes, a luxurious library remarkable for both the choice of editions and the richness of the bindings as well as the importance of the manuscripts it contained.
