BOSSUET, Jacques Bénigne.

Lot 986
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2000 - 3000 EUR
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Result : 2 780EUR
BOSSUET, Jacques Bénigne.
Speech on universal history to Monsieur le Dauphin: to explain the continuation of religion & the changes of empires. Paris, Sébastien Mabre-Cramoisy, 1681. In-4 (248 x 180 mm) of 5 ff.n.ch. including the title, 561 pp., 3 ff.n.ch. de table et privilège; red morocco, triple gilt fillet framing, spine ribbed and ornamented, roulette on the cuts, gilt edges on marbling (contemporary binding). First edition. Work composed about 1677 for the instruction of the Dauphin, son of Louis XIV. "This Treatise on World-History is the last noteworthy exercise in that type of universal history which, beginning with St. Augustine, interpreted the course of human history as a continuous manifestation of divine providence leading mankind towards salvation. Bossuet was the most famous court-preacher of Louis XIV. He wrote the Discours for the instruction of the Dauphin, whose tutor he was from 1670 to 1679; for history, Bossuet declared, is the counsellor of princes a noble specimen of French prose" (PMM). "[This] work aroused, as soon as it appeared, a universal admiration which time has not weakened; and it is impossible, in fact, to find in any human work of greater strength, grandeur and brilliance a more constant elevation of thought with such magnificence of language. "(Hoefer). Very fine copy, well preserved in its original red morocco binding; minute restorations to the corners and tops. It is enriched with a portrait engraved by Chereau after Rigaud. Provenance: Nightingale (ex-libris). Brunet, I, 1134; Cioranescu, 14031; Le Petit, p. 420; PMM, 157; Tchemerzine-Scheler, II, 365-66.
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