NOUVEAU DICTIONNAIRE DE L'ACADEMIE FRANÇAISE. À Paris, chez - Lot 15

NOUVEAU DICTIONNAIRE DE L'ACADEMIE FRANÇAISE. À Paris, chez Jean-Baptiste Coignard, 1718. 2 volumes in-folio, garnet-red morocco, wide-margin copy, ribbed spines with partitions and fleurons, triple gilt fillet framing the boards with gilt coat of arms in the center, gilt roulettes on the necks and chasses, gilt edges (period binding). I: (16, of which the 2nd and 4th are blank)-922 pp. - II: (4, of which the 2nd and 4th are blank)-820 pp. with some marginal spotting. - Slightly worn bindings with faded spines, restored epidermis on first cover of first volume. FIRST EDITION OF THE SECOND VERSION OF THE ACADEMY'S DICTIONARY. This is the text of the first version, published in 1694, but reordered alphabetically by words, rather than by word families as before. Definitions concerning flora and fauna are often erroneous, but those concerning instruments and tools are of great interest for the history of techniques and arts. ILLUSTRATION ENGRAVED ON COPPER, including an out-of-text frontispiece with the effigy of Louis XIV by Jean Mariette and Gérard Edelinck after Jean-Baptiste Corneille; 8 vignettes in the text, i.e.: 2 headbands (one with the effigy of Louis XV by Benoît Audran after Antoine Coypel, the other, repeated, by Jean Mariette after Jean-Baptiste Corneille), 3 initials, and a typographical mark repeated in the titles. These copperplates were already present in the 1694 edition, with the exception of the band adorning the epistle, specially engraved with the portrait of Louis XV for the present edition. BOUND IN MOROCCO WITH THE ARMS OF THE DUCHESSE DE BERRY, DAUGHTER OF THE REGENT, Marie-Louise-Élisabeth d'Orléans (1695-1719) was first known as Mlle de Valois, before marrying in 1710 one of Louis XIV's legitimate grandsons, the Duc de Berry, Charles de Bourbon, who died prematurely in 1714. Sensitive and keenly intelligent, adored by her father, she led the life of a free woman, collecting lovers, but found herself the target of almost universal hostility, including that of her mother (Louis XIV's legitimate daughter), and suffered greatly as a result. "This princess was tall, beautiful and well-built, but with little grace, and something in her eyes that made us fear what she held [...]. [...] Shy on the one hand in trifles, bold on the other to the point of fright. High to the point of madness, low also to the point of indecency; it could be said that, apart from avarice, she was a model of all vices, which were all the more dangerous as one could not have more art or more wit. [...] She spoke with a singular grace, a natural eloquence that was peculiar to her, and which flowed with ease and source, finally with a correctness of expression that surprised and charmed. What would she not have done with these talents with the King and Mme de Maintenon, who only wanted to love her, with Mme la Duchesse de Bourgogne, who married her and made her her own thing, and since with a father regent of the Kingdom, who only had eyes for her, if the vices of the heart, mind and soul, and the most violent temperament had not turned so many beautiful things into the most dangerous poison? The most inordinate pride and the most continual falsehood, she took for virtues, of which she always pricked herself, and the irreligion, with which she thought she adorned her mind, put the finishing touches to everything else."