Books and Manuscripts

[Louis XVI] (Baron d'Herville, Jean-Baptiste-Michel-Rene Durand)
Reflexions Morales & Politiques sur le Proces de Louis XVI
Paris, ca. 1814. Square 8vo, 9 1/2 x 7 5/8 in. (241 x 194 mm). (viii), viii, 50 pp. Autograph manuscript in black ink with gilt bordering, signed by Jean-Baptiste Durand, Baron d'Herville, and presented to King Louis XVIII. Original full green straight-grain morocco, elaborately stamped in gilt, with the French Royal arms in gilt at corners of front and rear boards, boards and extremities rubbed, corners worn, spine ends chipped; all edges gilt; white silk endpapers; book-plate of Adrian Hoffman Joline on front paste-down, ownership ink stamp of Dr. Max Thorek below same; scattered light soiling to text. 

A fine manuscript account of the trial of French King Louis XVI, presented to his brother King Louis XVIII by French General Jean-Baptiste Durand, Baron d"Herville (1749-1830). Baron d'Herville was a lawyer in the Royal Court at Paris and a French General who fought in the Napoleonic Wars. He was appointed a member of the Legion of Honor in 1805, and was created Baron of the Empire by Napoleon in 1808. In September, 1814 he was awarded a commander's cross by Louis XVIII. It is likely that d'Herville gifted this manuscript to King Louis XVIII as a sign of his loyalty and to curry favor with the new monarch following the Second Restoration.

In the Ashburnham Place Library catalogue, they state regarding this very manuscript, “in the dedication the author complains that his work had been appropriated by M. de Rougeville." (Catalogue of a Portion of the Collection of Manuscripts…, No. 163, 1899). Alexandre Gonsse de Rougeville (1761-1814) was a Royalist and friend of King Louis XVI, and published a book with the same title as the above manuscript, in 1792.