Histoire De L’Orleannois, Depuis L’An 703 De La Fondation De Rome, Jusqu’a Nos Jours. Tome Premier.
Amsterdam and Paris, P.-F. Gueffier 1766.
4to (250 x 193 mm.). xvi, 419, [1 blank], 106, [1]p. THREE MANUSCRIPTS IN THE HAND OF LOUIS-EUSÈBE LOISEAU ARE TIPPED IN — one of 15 pages (186 x 118 mm.) and two bifolia — Mémoire (1782/6; 229 x 185 mm.) and Observations (1786; 198 x 156 mm.).
Contemporary cat’s paw sheep (neatly restored, slightly defective), gilt spine and label, red edges, pink silk marker; interleaved throughout — a vertical crease divides the interleaves in two columns.
With: Jousse, Daniel-Charles. 1742-1769. Ad I-II: This volume belonged to the local historian and Orléans Cathedral canon Louis-Eusèbe Loiseau (1721-95).
Lettre D’Un Orléanois…Sur La Nouvelle Histoire De L’Orléanois. Bruxelles and Paris, E. Flon and J. Debure 1766. 12mo (173 x 110 mm.) inlaid in blank quarto sheets for binding. 40p.
Ad I: ALL PUBLISHED, SUPPRESSED. Only Edition. Luchet believed “Good history is a long fable” (p. iv, tr.). Immediately upon publication of this first volume of a projected five, Luchet’s fanciful account of the history of Orléans and environs (52 B.C.E. to 1428 C.E.) came under fire. He had manufactured personal information, abandoned the facts, cloven to the marvelous and doubted Jeanne d’Arc’s divine mission (pp. 307-419). This last angered the clergy, and THE DUC D’ORLÉANS FORCED THE AUTHOR TO BUY UP AND DESTROY THE EDITION.
COUNTERING LUCHET’S FANTASIES, LOISEAU COMPILED HIS OWN THIRTY THOUSAND WORD DOUBLE-COLUMN CHRONOLOGY, filling 115 interleaf pages. Its preface summarizes Luchet’s History — “detestable in substance and form” (tr.), lists errors and sketches a damning biography of Luchet. One column of the manuscript chronology draws on Polluche’s Essais historiques sur Orléans (1778) and the other on articles in Calendrier historique d’Orléanois by the Orléans Maurist librarian, Louis Fabre (1710-98).
The longest, and earliest, inserted manuscript is A FIFTEEN-PAGE ESSAY UNFAVORABLE TO LUCHET’S HISTORY, identifying still more inaccuracies (nine concern Jeanne d’Arc). The Mémoire takes a statistical and economic perspective on Orléans, its architecture and exports. Signed by Loiseau, the Observations treats the by-laws of the new Orléans learned society, born of the 1786 merger of two earlier groups. Loiseau was secretary of one for 25 years (1761-85).
¶Lanéry d’Arc, Le Livre d’or de Jeanne d’Arc. Bibliographie 700; Lelong, Bibliothèque historique de la France III: 35603-4; Brainne et al., Les Hommes illustres de l’Orléanais I: 250-2.
Ad II: Only Edition, the author’s sole book and the first published attack on Luchet’s History. Exposing 108 blunders with context and secondary source proof, Jousse used material gathered by his father (1710-81), who supplied all the entries related to Orléans in Lelong’s Bibliothèque historique (1768-78).
¶Lanéry d’Arc 700; Lelong III: 35604; Conlon, Le Siècle des Lumières 66:976.
All items are in good condition.
Price: $6,200.00