[Françoise Bertaut] de Motteville. Memoires pour servir a l'histoire d'Anne d'Autriche epouse de Louis XIII. Roi de Fran... (Total: 5 Items)
Description
"That which I put upon paper I have seen and I have
heard" - The Memoirs of Madame de Motteville
on Anne of Austria and Her Court, in the
Original French First Published in 1723
[Françoise Bertaut] de Motteville. Memoires pour
servir a l'histoire d'Anne d'Autriche epouse de Louis XIII. Roi de
France. Par Madame de Motteville, Une de ses
Favorites. Amsterdam: Chez François Changuion, 1723. One of
apparently two editions published in 1723, both twelvemo, but with
different collations. This edition has title-pages printed in red
and black with woodcut vignettes, thirty lines of text per page,
and an index for all five volumes at the end of Volume V. The other
edition has title-pages printed in red and black with engraved
vignettes of Desiderius Erasmus, thirty-six lines of text per page,
and an index at the end of each volume. Five twelvemo volumes (6.25
x 3.625 inches; 159 x 93 mm.). [18], 67, 66-557, [1, blank]; [2,
title], 570 [i.e., 568]; [2, title], 588 [i.e., 568]; [2, title],
558 [i.e., 556]; [2, title], 120, 123-506, [78, "Table des
Matières"] pages. (Signature collation: *9 (12-3) A-Z12 Aa4; [pi]1
A-Z12 Aa8; [pi]1 A-Z12 Aa8; [pi]1 A-Z12 Aa8; [pi]1 A-Z12 Aa12 Bb3
(4-1)). Numerous errors in pagination. Without the six-page
publisher's catalogue sometimes found as preliminary pages
[19]-[24]. Title-pages printed in red and black with woodcut
vignettes; decorative woodcut head- and tail-pieces and initials.
Edited by Blaizot Desbordes (Quérard).Later eighteenth-century French mottled sheep. Spines decoratively tooled in gilt in compartments with five gilt-decorated raised bands and two black morocco labels ruled and lettered in gilt; board edges decoratively tooled in gilt; marbled endpapers; edges stained red. Green silk ribbon bookmarks.
Most volumes with small areas of surface loss to the bindings, a somewhat larger area of loss on Volume IV. Some spines lightly rubbed and some corners lightly bumped. Endpapers browned at the edges from turn-ins. Volume I with lower corner torn from O5 (pages 319/320), affecting the last three lines of text on both recto and verso and the catchword and signature mark on the recto; small hole in O6 (pages 321/322) and V8 (pages 469/470), each affecting a couple of letters; small hole in Aa4 (pages 557/[558]), affecting a couple of words in two lines on the recto; dampstaining to the last leaf. Volume II with small dampstain in the upper margin visible on C6-F5 (pages 59-130); small hole in title, not affecting text; A1 (pages 1/2) with small hole, lower corner torn away, and a one-and-three-quarter-inch tear from the outer margin; horizontal tear into the text on R6 (pages 395/396), neatly repaired, but affecting a few words in one line on both recto and verso. Volume III with dampstaining throughout, but not to text edges or to binding; a few scattered ink spots. Volume IV with a few small stains or ink smudges. Volume V with lower corner of P5 (pages 347/348) torn away, affecting several words in the last eight lines; ink spots on pages 371 and 469, obliterating a couple of letters. A few additional tiny marginal tears or paper flaws in each volume, not affecting any text. In spite of these mostly minor flaws, this is a very attractive set. From the library of John Carroll Collins.
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More Information:
French memoir writer Françoise Bertaut de Motteville (ca. 1621-1689) was the daughter of Pierre Bertaut, a gentleman of the king's chamber, and a Spanish mother, who was the friend and private secretary of Anne of Austria (1601-1666), wife of Louis XIII and mother of Louis XIV. From childhood Madame de Motteville was a member of the royal household, and after the death of Louis XIII, she became lady-in-waiting and closest confidant to Anne of Austria from 1643 until the Queen Regent's death. Her memoirs give a faithful picture of the life of the French court in the seventeenth century.
"Let us repose awhile with Madame de Motteville, the writer of these judicious Memoirs,-with that wise and reasonable mind which saw very closely the things of her day, and estimated and described them in such perfect proportion and with an accuracy so agreeable. When the Memoirs of Madame de Motteville appeared for the first time, in 1723, the journalists and critics of that day, while praising their tone of sincerity, deemed that they gave too many minute details, too many little facts" (Volume I, page 1, of Sainte-Beuve's Introduction to Memoirs of Madame de Motteville on Anne of Austria and Her Court, Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley (Boston: Hardy, Pratt & Company, 1902)).
In the Preface to her Memoirs (Volume I, page 24, of the above-mentioned translation), Madame de Motteville writes: "That which I put upon paper I have seen and I have heard, and during the whole Regency (which is the period of my attendance on the princess), I have written, without order, from time to time, and sometimes daily, what seemed to me most remarkable. In doing this I employed the time that ladies are accustomed to give to cards and promenades, because of the hatred I have always felt to the useless life of the people of the great world. I do not know if I have done better than others; but at least I know well that, to my thinking, one cannot do worse than to do nothing."
Volume I covers the years 1611-1647; Volume II, 1648-1649; Volume III, 1649-1650; Volume IV, 1651-1658; Volume V, 1659-1666.
Brunet III, columns 1929-1930. Quérard, Volumes 2/3, column 1207.
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