[Jean-Armand Du Plessis, cardinal duc de RICHELIEU]. Testame - Lot 59

[Jean-Armand Du Plessis, cardinal duc de RICHELIEU]. Testament politique... Amsterdam, Henry Desbordes, 1688. 2 volumes in one in-16, red morocco, triple fillet, nicely decorated smooth spine, interior roulette, gilt edges (18th century binding). Brunet, VI-3974 / Cioranescu, III-59263 / Quérard, Fr. Litt., VIII-33 /// I. (11 sur 12f.)-282 / II. 192. Third edition, revised and corrected, in reality an original edition as only small parts of the text had been published previously. A delightful copy in a very fine 18th-century binding. It contains on a flyleaf a long handwritten note dated April 18, 1784, signed D'Antraigues. Emmanuel Henri Louis Alexandre de Launay, comte d'Antraigues, was born in 1755 in Villeneuve-de-Berg or Montpellier. A publicist with close ties to the philosophers and writers of his time, he was elected deputy to the Estates General on behalf of the nobility of his native town, but, horrified by the crimes of the Revolution, he claimed the prerogatives of the nobility and emigrated in 1790, becoming a very active secret agent of the Royalist party. He was assassinated near London in 1812. The long handwritten note indicates that this book was given to him by his friend Malesherbes on March 14, 1784, when he was at the Château de Malesherbes in the company of La Harpe, Marmontel and Étienne Montgolfier. Later, on April 13, 1784, they all went to the King's library, where they saw a handwritten copy of Richelieu's political will, including 14 pages and 41 corrections in his own hand. From the libraries of the Comte de Leitrin (bookplate) and Jacques Dennery (bookplate).