RECUEIL DES LOIX CONSTITUTIVES DES COLONIES ANGLOISES, CONFE - Lot 53

RECUEIL DES LOIX CONSTITUTIVES DES COLONIES ANGLOISES, CONFEDEREES SOUS LA DENOMINATION D'ÉTATS-UNIS de l'Amérique-septentrionale. To which are attached the Acts of Independence, Confederation & other Acts of the General Congress. À Philadelphie, et se vend à Paris, chez Cellot & Jombert fils jeune, 1778. In-12, (12)-370 pp; cloisonné and fleuronné half calf, red edges; worn spine with splits and restorations (period binding). RARE FIRST EDITION OF THE FRENCH TRANSLATION of this compendium, which includes the Constitutions of the first six colonies to adopt them, in 1776: Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and South Carolina. In addition, there are various texts issued by Congress (including the Declaration of Independence), by states, cities and so on. PLAGIARISM BECAME QUASI-OFFICIAL PUBLICATION BY BENJAMIN FRANKLIN'S OWN ADMISSION. These French versions are the work of Duke Louis-Alexandre de La Rochefoucauld d'Enville, an aristocratic supporter of new ideas, an ardent supporter of the American cause and a friend of Benjamin Franklin. At first, they had appeared separately in various publications: the Pennsylvania Constitution, for example, had been delivered to the public in 1777 in Benjamin Franklin's La Science du bonhomme Richard, while the other five had been inserted in Les Affaires de l'Angleterre et de l'Amérique, a periodical published from 1776 to 1779 by Benjamin Franklin and John Adams under the supervision of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs - Benjamin Franklin was the main supplier of texts, and the Duc de la Rochefoucauld d'Enville was a regular contributor. These six translations were collected without authorization by a certain Régnier, sometimes presented as a former director of military hospitals, sometimes as Napoleon I's future minister, Claude-Ambroise Régnier. He decided to preface his collection with a dedicatory epistle, signed with his name, to Benjamin Franklin, in which he is laudatory: "The Laws I have collected seem to me to be one of the most beautiful monumens of human wisdom; they constitute the purest Democracy that has yet existed; they already seem to make the happiness of the Peoples who have submitted to them." Embarrassed by this indelicate initiative, Benjamin Franklin finally decided to associate himself with it, so as not to harm the American cause by an incident, and on the contrary to contribute to nurturing a nascent movement of sympathy. By accepting the dedication and bringing the weight of his reputation to bear on the collection, he turned it into a veritable propaganda tool, which he also helped to shape to his own liking: he had the Declaration of Independence and acts of continental congresses added to suggest the effective (but then premature) idea that the United States was already a functioning republic. Benjamin Franklin would officially publish in 1783 the translations by the Duc de La Rochefoucauld d'Enville of the Constitutions of all 13 founding States, incorporating the 6 of the present Recueil des loix. See no. 20 above.