Bethune, Maximilien de, Duc de Sully

Memoires de Maximilien De Bethune, Duc de Sully

A Londres [ie. Paris] 1745 Principal Ministre De Henry Le Grand. Mis en ordre: avec des remarques. Par M. L. D. L. D. L. [i.e. P. M. de L'Ecluse des Loges]. Engraved frontispiece portraits by Roy in vols. 1 and 2. Titles printed in red and black with an engraved vignette. 3 volumes. 4to. [i]f, xxxvi, 596, [2] pp; [2]ff, x, 664, [1] pp; [2]ff, vi, 563, [1] pp. Bound in contemporary calf, the spines divided into six panels with gilt compartments, lettered in the second and third panels, the others tooled with two alternating heraldic devices, marbled endleaves, red edges. (Headcaps broken, joints cracked but firm and a little rubbed). With the half-titles. Occasional dust-soiling and light foxing or spotting, but a good copy of this handsomely produced work. The Duc de Sully (1559-1641) was "Henri IV's great minister, whose financial and agrarian reforms largely repaired the damage done to the French economy by the Wars of Religion, helping also to secure the position of the Bourbon dynasty. Discarded after Henri's death in 1610, Sully retired to his chateau, living in regal style and dictating his memoirs, the "Economies royales d'état, domestiques, politiques et militaires" (1638), a wide-ranging survey of the times but also an apologetic work, including the notorious account of Henri's (probably mythical) plan to creat a United States of Europe, the so-called "Grand Dessein"". Bookplate of John, 6th Duke of Bedford. From the library at Woburn Abbey.

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• ordernr.: ebc1705

• bookseller: George Bayntun (GREAT BRITAIN)