[LOUIS XIII, le Juste.]

Codicilles de Louys XIII. Roy de France & de Navarre. A son tres Cher fils aisné Successeur ... [colophon:] Achevé d'Imprimer le septième d'Aoust. 1643.

[but possibly between 1713 and 1719 (see below).] Four parts in one vol., 16mo bound in eights, pp.[xvi], 147, 420, 222, 165; lacking the half-title; Polish ownership label and engraved bookplate to the front pastedown; ink ownership inscription to the title; armorial ink-stamp to blank verso of title; ink inscription to page 15; in eighteenth-century full red morocco, corners worn, triple gilt fillet, all edges gilt, marbled endpapers, spine decorated gilt in compartments, with a black morocco lettering-piece; a highly desirable copy. Extremely rare first edition ostensibly of the codicil to the will of Louis XIII, published in the year of his death and addressed to the five-year-old Louis XIV as a comprehensive (and closely-printed) codex of fatherly wisdom. Brunet, however, notes that ‘jusqu’ici on n’a pas pu découvrir le nom de l’auteur de ce livre aussi singulier que rare’ and Georges Lacour-Gayet, in his Un utopiste inconnu. Les Codicilles de Louis XIII (Paris, 1903), discusses at length both the possible authorship and date of the work, which he estimates as between 1713 (the suggested earliest acquisition date for the Royal Library copy) and 1719 (when the work first appears in a bibliography). The typography is, however, very seventeenth-century in appearance. That said, we have found no later denial of Lacour-Gayet’s arguments.Saint-Simon noted in his copy (now at the Bibliothèque nationale): ‘Ce livre qui est très rare est d’ailleurs très extraordinaire et mérite d’être lu pour sa singularité et parcequ’à travers mille extravagances, il contient quelques idées sur lesquelles un bon citoyen peut s’ârreter et réfléchir’.The work serves to define every aspect of the life of the new King, whether in manners, religion or politics. Among the proposals for running the country, it advises that one should ‘treat the Jews well, as they are, after all, God’s own people; that one should unify the Catholic and Protestant Churches and allow priests to marry; build lots of colleges, provide dowries for poor girls, confiscate goods belonging to tax collectors, and combat extravagant expenditure, particularly among the senior clergy; that the Mass should be said in French, burials be democratized, officials be made more accountable, and unproductive monks and nuns should be suppressed; that legal cases should be heard on the same day as the accused is apprehended, and that a tax should be made on ignorance, idleness, and celibacy; that foreigners should be repelled, and a whole host of people be condemned to death, including whores, pimps and brothel-keepers, duellists, arsonists, tricksters and conjurors … and that the streets be kept clean by the elimination of animals. ‘The third part, entitled “Prudence guerrière”, formally charges the future Louis XIV to launch all his armies into the conquest or, rather, reconquest of the entire world, as it belongs to the French Crown, and calls for the inhabitants of the world to give thanks to God for being reunited under their legitimate king. Finally, in the fourth part (“Prudence ménagère”), the author establishes the budget for [the young King], forgetting nothing, from the army to teachers, via the courts (and the Court), and ends with a list of prescribed readings from Holy Scripture which are to be read to the King during his dinners and suppers from 1645 to 1654’ (Pierre Versins, Encyclopédie de l’utopie des voyages extraordinaires et de la science fiction, 2nd edition, 1984, p. 549, our translation).Brunet II, 120 (‘un objet de véritable curiosité’); Negley 217; OCLC and RLIN locate only 2 copies in the US, at Michigan State and Harvard; Negley adds the copy at Yale.

• GBP 12,500.00 > otras divisas
• nº de pedido: H719.1

• librero: Bernard Quaritch Ltd. (GREAT BRITAIN)