[Rarebooks] fa: [TRIAL FOR REGICIDE] PROCEDURES DU PROCES FAIT A ROBERT-FRANCOIS DAMIENS - 1757

[ArCh]

Auction ends Sunday, March 26. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

https://tinyurl.com/5n75n6u7

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA


[Alexandre-Andre le Breton (ed.):] Pieces Originales et Procedures du Proces, fait a Robert-Francois Damiens, tant en la Prevote de l'Hotel qu'en la Cour de Parlement. Paris: Pierre-Guillaume Simon, 1757. First edition. Tall 4to (30 cm) in early/period full morocco, spine elaborately decorated in gilt, front and rear boards with gilt-tooled borders and turn-ins, all page edges gilt, marbled endpapers; xlii + 610 pp.; title-page printed in red and black, engraved title vignette, initials, and head- and tail-pieces. As often, bound without the table of contents issued separately the following year.

First edition, and uncommon thus (a smaller octavo edition in four volumes was published the same year). A sumptuously printed account of the trial, torture and execution of the would-be regicide Robert-François Damiens, a religious zealot or lunatic, depending on one's point of view, who attempted to assassinate Louis XV on January 5, 1757. Damiens was the last person to be executed in France by dismemberment (specifically, emasculation by the executioner's knife, dismemberment by horsepower, and immolation). Giacomo Casanova was a witness to the gruesome spectacle and later wrote about it in his memoirs: "We had the courage to watch the sight for four hours..."

Handsome period binding with bumping and wear to two of the corners, some sunning to the spine and top edge of the rear board; contents with occasional very light toning, a few scattered small spots, else exceedingly clean and fresh, firmly bound. The book may have once have been part of the original owner's collection of legal tomes, hence the unrelated "Tom VII" on the spine.