Charles-Louis-Marie de Coskaer, comte de... - Lot 328 - Ader

Charles-Louis-Marie de Coskaer, comte de LA VIEUVILLE (1697-1771) gentleman, officer, memorialist and writer. Manuscript of his Mémoires ou Réflexions sur moi-même, et sur les diferentes circonstance où je me suis trouve dans ma vie, [circa 1752]; one volume in-4 (15,5 x 20,5 cm) of 211 leaves (plus qqs ff vierges), olive green morocco binding, triple gilt fillet framing the boards, spine with six gilt boxes and decorated with a flower, gilt edges (period binding). Remarkable manuscript of Memoirs from the middle of the 18th century, completed by a beautiful set of other manuscripts of philosophical works and mixtures of the Count de La Vieville. The Memoirs of the Count of La Vieuville were published in 2007 by Champion, by Catherine Hémon-Fabre and Pierre-Eugène Leroy, with a preface by Marc Fumaroli, stating that "French literature of the eighteenth century has just been enriched by one of its unknown chapters, obliging us to revise many schemes, hierarchies, and even received prejudices". According to the editors, "this dense text, written in a colorful French, gives a glimpse of an original personality: that of a great lord, the youngest child of one of the first families of France. Unloved by his mother, he also suffers from his unenviable position as the last-born. His account of the first half of the century is full of adventures: he led his "caravans" as a knight of Malta in the Mediterranean; he took part in the last campaigns of Louis XIV's reign in Germany; he enjoyed the Parisian life of the Regency and the first years of Louis XV's reign. His judgments, very close to those of Saint-Simon on Law's system and its consequences, on the Jansenist crisis, have the interest, formulated in the middle of the century, to lift for us the veil on the first causes of the French Revolution. With a fine and regular writing, very readable, the manuscript, ruled in red, is carefully presented, with a painted title page, and initials on the first three leaves. Let us quote the beginning, in the form of a prologue: "Can one better employ one's time, when one completes the last year of the eleventh lustre, than to reflect on oneself, and to work to make oneself as happy as it is possible for a man to be? I spent my youth in pleasures, or rather in distraction; for one cannot, nor should one, call a time of pleasure that in which one is not to oneself, and in which one believes all one's moments to be the best used, when they are the worst. This tempered ardor, I devoted myself to reading, to work, to reflections, that pleasures, even the most lively, never did but suspend in me. I was born with this taste, and in the time when I gave myself up most to my whims, I always felt a new satisfaction when I found myself with myself, and that I could use a few moments for study. I was given over to myself too early. I know that education does not give a happy nature to those who do not have it, and that it does not correct the bad. But it is certain that it serves to perfect the good. I was not brought up as I should have been, although I was born into a noble and illustrious family, both on my father's side and on my mother's, who was undoubtedly descended from some younger branches of a sovereign house. I have faults that education could have corrected, and if I am worth anything, I can say that it is to me, in part, that I owe it"... Attached is a beautiful set of manuscripts of works and handwritten collections of La Vieuville, some probably autographs, several bearing the handwritten ex-libris: "Ex manuscriptis operibus, Caroli Mariæ, Comitis de Lavieuville" (it has been cut out on some volumes). - 8 in-8 volumes of Œuvres mêlées (contemporary marbled calf binding, spines ornamented; some volumes have been censored by page tearing): Translation of various English authors by the comte de La Vieuville (including Shaftesbury, Swift,); Lettre sur l'enthousiasme; Traité sur le sens commun avec un essai sur la liberté de l'esprit, et de l'humeur; Essai sur les guerres civiles de France, et sur la poésie épique, d'après Voltaire; Lettres à Mme.... on my trip to Holland and free thoughts on various subjects; Le Calloandre fidelle translated from Italian; Remarks on various passages of authors and philosophers both ancient and modern; copy of the Anti-Seneca or the sovereign good, virtuous without merit and vicious without crime of Lamettrie, etc. - 9 volumes in-8 or in-12 of Miscellanea (period binding in olive green calf, wide gilt lace on the boards with ducal crown at the corners) : Historical anecdotes from the reign of Louis XIV, on the Duke of Orleans and the Regency, Italian news, anecdotes, poems, pornographic epigrams, etc. - one volume in-4 of mixtures (contemporary binding in olive green morocco, smooth spine decorated): Dialogues translated from Italian, Histoire abrégée... des rois d