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CONSTITUTIONS DES TREIZE ETATS-UNIS DE L'AMERIQUE.
(Philadelphia and Paris: [Printed for La Rochefoucault and Benjamin Franklin by] Philippe-Denys Pierres [and] Pissot, père et fils, 1783). 194 x 122 mm. (7 5/8 x 4 3/4"). 2 p.l., 540 pp.With extensive explanatory footnotes by Benjamin Franklin. The First Collected Edition in French of the Constitutions of the U.S. States. ONE OF 500 COPIES of the regular issue (and 100 Large Paper Copies; this apparently one of the 50 regular copies bound in calf).
Contemporary cat's paw calf, raised bands, spine gilt in compartments with pomegranate centerpiece, volute cornerpieces, brown morocco label, marbled endpapers. With the Great Seal of the United States on title page. A PRESENTATION COPY: the title page with contemporary ink note (in Latin), dated 1783, stating that this book was the gift of the Duc de La Rochefoucauld, who translated the American documents from "idiomatic English" into French. Livingston, "Franklin's Press at Passy," pp. 181-88; Howes C-716; Sabin 16118; Streeter sale II:1035. Thin strip missing from head of spine, backstrip rather dried, joints, edges, and corners a bit rubbed, leather a little pitted from acid treatment (as usual), other minor external defects, but the binding agreeable as an original, unrestored survival. First two and last two leaves a little foxed and soiled (minor foxing in a number of other places), but the text quite fresh and generally clean and appealing.
This is an especially desirable copy of a work containing founding documents of the American republic in French, an important language for the international community, the book apparently being a gift--as indicated on the title page--from the translator. The volume represents a collaboration between compiler Benjamin Franklin, the man the U.S. State Department considers "America's first diplomat," and translator Louis Alexandre de La Rochefoucauld (1743-92), an important French aristocrat who was an enthusiastic supporter of the American Revolution. The book contains the state constitutions of the original 13 states, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation (precursor to the U.S. Constition), and the treaties between the United States and France, the Low Countries, and Sweden. Printer, polymath, and Founding Father Franklin (1706-90) explained the motivation behind this work to Thomas Mifflin, president of the Confederation Congress, in a letter of 25 December 1783: "The extravagant Misrepresentations of our Political State, in foreign Countries, made it appear necessary to give them better Information, which I thought could not be more effectually and authentically done than by publishing a Translation into French, now the most general Language in Europe, of the Book of Constitutions which had been printed by Order of Congress. This I accordingly got well done. … It has been well taken, and has afforded [a] Matter of Surprise to many, who had conceived mean Ideas of the State of Civilization in America, and could not have expected so much political Knowledge and Sagacity had existed in our Wilderness. And from all Parts I have the Satisfaction to hear that our Constitutions in general are much admired. I am persuaded that this Step will not only tend to promote the Emigration to our Country of substantial People from all Parts of Europe, by the numerous Copies I shall dispense, but will facilitate our future Treaties with Foreign Courts, who could not before know what kind of Government and People they had to treat with." Franklin called on his friend Louis Alexandre de La Rochefoucauld (1743-92) to translate the documents, with Franklin providing corrections and clarifications, often included here as footnotes. According to Livingston, Franklin had 100 copies of the work printed in quarto for presentation to various European dignitaries, and had 50 of the octavo copies bound in calf. As our copy is noted to be the gift of La Rochefoucauld, it seems possible that it was one of those 50. This publication had one more distinction, noted by Livingston: it contains the first appearance in any printed book of the Great Seal of the United States, adopted by Congress in 1782. (ST18935b)
Price: $15,000.00