[Rarebooks] fa: MEMOIRS OF THE BASTILLE (by a Former Inmate) - Simon Linguet - First Edition 1783

[ArCh]

Auctions ending Sunday, March 19. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

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Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA


[Simon Nicolas Henri Linguet:] Memoirs of the Bastille. Containing a full Exposition of the Mysterious Policy and Despotic Oppression of the French Government, in the Interior Administration of that State-Prison. Interspersed with a Variety of Curious Anecdotes. Translated from the French of the celebrated Mr. Linguet, who was Imprisoned there from September 1780, to May 1782. London: Printed for G. Kearsly, (no. 46) Fleet-Street, by T. Spilsbury, Snow-Hill, 1783. First edition. Small 8vo (16 cm) in modern three-quarter calf and marbled boards, gilt-lettered morocco spine label; [2], iv, 114; 162 pp. In two parts, with separate pagination for each. ESTC T108217.

First edition of this expose of the French penal system during the waning days of the ancien regime. Having offended several notables in the royal court, including the duc de Duras, with his sarcastic literary attacks, Linguet was imprisoned in the Bastille for twenty months. Writing from the safety of exile in England, Linguet here protests his innocence and devotion to Louis XVI, attacks the notorious system of lettres de cachet by which he was arrested, and paints a melodramatic picture of life in the infamous prison. A disbarred lawyer turned gadfly journalist whose fame at one time surpassed that of Beaumarchais and even rivaled Voltaire's, Simon Linguet (1736-1794) was above all a contrarian with an almost suicidal bent for offending the wrong people at the wrong time, monarchists and revolutionaries alike. Marie Antoinette was a staunch supporter, but after 1789 her backing was a mixed blessing, to say the least. He retired to Marnes in order to escape the Terror, but in 1794 his luck finally ran out and he was condemned as a royalist sympathizer and guillotined.

Occasional mild toning to the leaves (most noticeable on the title-page and last leaf), a few page corners creased, else very clean and sound, rebound in a fresh and attractive modern binding.