Description
Collection des Mémoires relatifs à la Révolution Française: Mémoires de Bailly, avec une notice sur sa vie, des notes et des éclaircissements historiques par MM. Berville et Barrière.
FIRST EDITION.
COPY OF EDMOND DE GONCOURT
Like many of the works in the Goncourt library, it was bound by Pierson in full red percaline and bears this first guard signed autograph note in red ink:
"copy on wove paper, Edmond de Goncourt".
Jean-Sylvain Bailly (1736-1793), astronomer and deputy of the Tiers to the Estates-General, was appointed mayor of Paris by acclamation after the storming of the Bastille. A victim of the Terror, he was arrested in Melun in 1793, brought before the Revolutionary Court and sentenced to death for his part in the Champ-de-Mars massacres. The first two volumes of his memoirs document the beginnings of the Revolution from 1789 to 1791. The third volume, which is apocryphal, contains various extracts from newspapers.
The reputation of the Goncourt brothers is due in particular to their early writings on the eighteenth century, particularly those concerning the revolutionary period: History of French society during the Revolution (1854), The revolution in morals (1854), History of Marie-Antoinette (1858).
Engraved royalist bookplate bearing the initials PK and the motto Our Lady protects France and the lineage of our kings.
Bound in contemporary style by Pierson. Bradel-style red percale, smooth spines, black headpieces, gilt titles, untrimmed.