MARESCHAL (Marie-Auguste). MANUSCRIT entitled... - Lot 94 - Pescheteau-Badin

MARESCHAL (Marie-Auguste). MANUSCRIT entitled "Opuscules maçonniques du F∴ Mareschal père ex. V[enéra]ble de la R[évérende] L[oge] de L'Union philanthropique à l'O[rient] de Lamballe". Dated "À l'O[rient] de Lamballe l'an de la V[raie] L[umière] 5809". In-16, marbled brown basane, ornate smooth spine with black title page, blue speckled edges (period binding). (2 of which the second is blank)-212 pp; spine rebound, ink bites to title leaf border. Dedicated to Cambacérès as Deputy Grand Master of the Grand Orient, this collection concerns the work of the L'Union Philanthropique de Lamballe Lodge: in prose, a report on Abbé Barruel's Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire du jacobinisme, a speech in honor of Louis-Florimond Fustier (officer in the Grand Orient), a speech on the occasion of the inauguration of the Lodge's Souverain Chapitre, the ritual of a "Loge de la Reconnaissance" in honor of Napoleon I (with DRAWING of the "particular decoration for the members of this [Lodge]" bearing Napoleon's name in the Masonic alphabet), etc. in verse, occasional pieces for the inauguration of the Lodge, for summer and winter St. John's feasts, for the departure of the Lodge's Venerable, etc. A physician born in Plancoët in 1739 and settled in Lamballe, Marie-Auguste Mareschal was, he says here in his introductory notice, "initiated at an advanced age (63) into the august mysteries of Freemasonry", i.e. in 1802. The title recalls that he had been Venerable of L'Union Philanthropique (a lodge founded in 1802), and the dedication specifies that he had attained the rank of Rosicrucian in 1809. At the end of the collection are two verse pieces attributed to Marie-Auguste Mareschal's son, Louis-Auguste, also a doctor, who would later become archivist of Côtes-du-Nord (now Côtes-d'Armor).