[Eustache Le Noble]. Les Amours d’Anne d’Autriche epouse de Louïs XIII. Avec Monsieur le C. D. R. le veritable Pere de Louïs XIV. aujourd’hui Roi de France. Ou l’on voit au long comment on s’y prit pour donner un Héritier à la couronne, les resors qu’on fit jouer pour cela, & enfin tout le dénouement de cette Comédie. Ensemble Avec la Reponse au Manifeste du Roy Jaques II. Traduit de l’Anglois d’un homme de qualité. Cologne [i.e. in Holland], Chez Guillaume Cadet, 1692. Small in-12. [10], 2 blank, 132 pp. ; 57 pp. Bound in the pastiche style of Duseuil in fawn calf, spine with 4 false-nerves richly decorated with the year at the foot, black morocco title page, gilt tool in the centre of the covers, gilt roulette on the edges, inside richly decorated, gilt edges. (Bound end of XIXe century).
A rare first edition of this violent satire directed against the Roi-Soleil, which started the rumour that Louis XIV was no longer descended from Saint-Louis, but was in fact a bastard of the House of Austria, the fruit of the adulterous love affairs of his mother Queen Anne of Austria, in this case with Cardinal de Richelieu!
“A piquant work, says Jules Gay, which in a small catalogue was attributed to a man called Pierre Lenoble, a name probably as unserious as that of Pierre Marteau. In the 1718 edition and in some others, the initials C. de R. have been replaced by the words: Cardinal de Richelieu; but according to the book itself, this allegation is false; for, according to the author, Cardinal de Richelieu, angered by the king’s brother Gaston, who had given him a blow, introduced a young lord, the C. de R., to Anne of Austria so that the crown of France would have the heir deprived by the impotence of Louis XIII. Some modern catalogues list the Comte de Rivière, but this assumption seems completely gratuitous. According to Tycho Hoffmann’s Portraits historiques des hommes illustres de Danemark, the Count of Rantzau was a distinguished lover of Anne. It has also been speculated that the initials stood for the Count of Rochefort”. In any case, the work therefore accuses Louis XIV of illegitimacy, who is also violently attacked in the dedication and the Avis au lecteur. This pamphlet seems to have been a great success. The Leber catalogue, no. 2189, lists at least 6 editions.
The work was of course listed in the catalogue of prohibited, unprivileged and counterfeit books; a record of it can be found under the heading “Mémoire de la Reyne Anne d’Autriche” in the report of its seizure from L’Archer, Chevance and Rambault on 14 September 1694.
La Reponse au Manifeste du Roy Jaques II has its own title page : Examen des pretextes de l’invasion des François pour l’Instruction des Anglois. The original English text of this violent diatribe against Louis XIV and James II in exile in France, The Pretences of the French invasion, is attributed to Daniel Defoe or William Lloyd, Bishop of Worcester. The licence to print, at the end of the text, is from Nottingham, 4 June 1692. It replies to His Majesties most gracious declaration to his good people of his ancient kingdom of Scotland, commanding their assistance against the prince and princesse of Orange and their adherents published in April of that year.
From the library of the French writer and art critic Paul Adam (1862-1920), with his autograph signature and, opposite the title, his triangular library wetstamp.
Gay, Bibliographie des livres relatifs aux femmes et à l’amour, t. I, p. 163 ; Goldsmith, A Short Title Catalogue of French Books 1601-1700, A 508 [only mentions the second edition of 1693] ; A. Sauvy, Livres saisis à Paris entre 1678 et 1701, n° 485 et n° 782.
700 €